>:^v< 


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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


2J 


Purchased   by  the   Hamill   Missionary   Fund. 


BL  80  .H94 

Hunt,  William  Remfry. 
Heathenism  under  tne 
searchlight  


HEATHENISM     UNDER    THE 
SEARCHLIGHT 


A  Buddhist  Priest 

These  Buddhist  priests  are  mostly  illiterate  men.  Some  £.re 
even  criminals.  Others  have  been  dedicated  to  the  temples 
from  childhood.  Only  a  very  few  have  any  intelligent  ideas 
of  the  Buddhist  religion.  They  serve  the  temples,  receive  the 
offerings,  and  chant  their  weird  calls  to  prayer.  In  some  of 
the  temples  they  turn  a  "  prayer- wheel  "  which  is  packed  with 
written  petitions,  and  which,  when  revolving,  offers  abo  jt 
10,000  prayers  per  hour. 


HEATHENISM  UNDER 
THE  SEARCHLIGHT: 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  FAR  EAST 

DEC    4    1 


BY 


WILLIAM  REMFRY  HUNT,  F.R.G.S. 

AUTHOR   OF    "facts   ABOUT   CHINA"    ETC. 


WITH   FOREWORD   BY 
Rev.  WILLIAM  DURBAN,  B.A. 


AMERICAN    TRACT   SOCIETY 

150   NASSAU   STREET  NEW   YORK 


"Religion  is  not  a  method,  it  is  a  life,  a  higher 
and  supernatural  life,  mystical  in  its  root,  and 
practical  in  its  fruits ;  a  communion  with  God,  a 
calm  and  deep  enthusiasm,  a  love  which  radiates,  a 
force  which  acts,  a  happiness  which  overflows." 

Henri  F.  Amiel. 


FOREWORD 

By  Eev.  William  Durban,  B.A.  (London) 

The  devoted  missionary,  Eev.  William  Eemfry  Hunt, 
is  issuing  Heathenism  Under  the  Searchlight  at  a 
psychological  moment.  There  are  junctures  in  the 
history  of  every  nation  wliich  are  recognised  by  all 
competent  observers  as  critical.  Some  such  crises  are 
decisive  of  the  whole  future  national  course.  It  is  the 
opinion,  emphatically  expressed,  of  such  supremely  able 
experts  as  Sir  Ernest  Satow,  Dr.  Timothy  Eichard,  the 
Eev.  William  Arthur  Cornaby,  and  Dr.  Griffith  John,  that 
the  Chinese  people  have  come  to  the  parting  of  the  ways ; 
that  they  are  emerging  from  the  somnolent  apathy  in 
which  they  have  been  shrouded  for  ages  receding  to 
prehistoric  times ;  that  they  are  for  the  first  displaying 
a  consciousness  of  the  superior  claims  of  Occidentalism  to 
Orientalism  in  knowledge,  in  science,  in  art,  in  wisdom ; 
that  they  are  abdicating  their  time-honoured  attitude  of 
arrogant  assimiptiou  and  of  superiority  to  all  nations 
outside  of  the  Middle  or  Flowery  Kingdom ;  and  that  for 
the  first  time  they  are  manifesting  willing  eagerness  to 
accept  lessons  in  all  departments  from  the  representatives 
of  modern  civilisation. 

5 


6  FOREWORD 

Many  students  have  recently  formulated  various 
opinions  as  to  the  main  motives  of  the  new  Chinese 
policy.  Probably  the  only  legitimate  conclusion  is  that,  as 
all  human  motives  are  mixed,  so  it  is  in  this  case.  Fear  of 
foreign  aggression  and  of  piratical  partition  by  the  Gieat 
Powers  which  have  been  carving  up  continents  for 
appropriation  and  annexation  is  surely  a  potent  factor. 
But  the  Providence  of  God  had  anticipated  the  ways  of  the 
leaders  of  the  nations,  by  raising  up  pioneers  of  a  new 
moral  and  spiritual  polity,  long  in  advance  of  the  move- 
ments of  carnal  and  secular  competitors  for  influence 
over  the  venerable  nationality.  The  twentieth  century 
began  with  the  tremendous  awakening  of  new  political 
forces  in  China  and  Japan ;  but  the  nineteenth  century 
had  commenced  with  the  vast  uprising  of  the  system  of 
modern  missions  which  inaugurated  a  new  Pentecost. 
China  is  starting  to  its  feet  to  stand  up  for  its  inde- 
pendence; but  the  Bible  translated  into  its  own  tongue 
is  the  first  object  that  it  grasps  with  its  newly  nerved 
hands.  "  China  for  Christ ! "  is  the  cry  of  China's  own 
native  Christian  Church,  born  under  the  blessed  auspices 
of  nineteenth-century  missionary  enterprise,  and  baptized 
at  the  close  of  that  century  in  the  blood  of  Chinese 
Christian  martyrs. 

Those  who  have  studied  the  history  of  nations  well 
understand  that  when  any  community  has  had  its 
religious  Keformation  before  its  political  Eevolution,  the 
nation  has  been  saved.  If  the  Eevolution  comes  first, 
with  fire  and  blood,  the  Reformation  is  likely  to    fail. 


FOREWORD  7 

Britain  accepted  the  Eeformation,  and  so  it  passed  safely 
through  revohitionary  throes  afterwards.  France  fatally 
reversed  the  order.  Now  the  most  crucial  problems  of 
"  Welt-Politik"  have  their  focus  in  the  Far  East.  Is 
China  to  be  civilised  before  it  is  Christianised  ?  The 
great  Churches  of  the  West  have  decided  that  this  must 
not  be  permitted.  A  Far  Eastern  national  lienaissance 
without  the  grace  of  God  is  an  appalling  contingency. 
The  object  of  this  booklet  is  to  prove  the  truth  of  this 
proposition. 

The  accomplished  missionary  author  belongs  to  that 
select  band  of  missionary-litterateurs  who,  while  toiling 
assiduously  in  their  arduous  field,  are  willing  and  able 
to  enlighten  us  in  the  West  concerning  their  exploitation 
of  the  time  conditions  of  paganism.  Much  has  been 
written  by  sciolists  in  disparagement  of  the  claims  of  the 
heathen  world  upon  Christendom.  Any  simple  recital 
of  actual  facts  such  as  those  contained  in  the  following: 
pages  aims  a  fatal  blow  at  that  specious  Ethnic  Theory 
which  is  in  favour  with  certain  schools  of  rationalists. 
It  might  more  aptly  be  termed  the  Ethnic  Superstition. 
It  professes  to  derive  itself  from  ethnology  by  scientific 
induction.  It  declares  that  Buddhism  is  perfectly 
adapted  to  the  idiosyncrasy  of  the  Chinese,  Burmese, 
Singalese,  and  Tibetan  races  ;  that  Brabmanism  is  exactly 
suited  to  the  Hindu  temperament ;  and  that  Islam  is  the 
proper  cult  for  the  Turks,  Persians,  and  Arabians.  Those 
who  only  indulge  in  dilettante  studies  may  be  deluded  by 
this    so-called     "  religious    philosophy    of    nationalities," 


8  FOREWORD 

But  workers  for  God  who  are  imbued  with  the  true 
"  enthusiasm  of  humanity  "  comprehend  how  such  theories 
mock  cruelly  at  the  profound  needs  of  the  nations  that 
sit  in  darkness. 

China  includes  twenty  mighty  provinces,  including  the 
grand  territory  called  Manchuria.  It  also  owns  vast 
Mongolian  and  Tibetan  appanages.  The  most  recently 
published  census  of  the  population  gives  the  total  number 
of  people  in  the  twenty  provinces  as  426,000,000. 
Here  we  find  one  quarter  of  the  world's  population  in  an 
area  which  is  only  one-twelfth  of  the  whole.  Surely  in 
some  special  aspects  China  is  the  most  important  mission 
field  on  earth.  For  if  China  becomes  Christian,  all  Asia 
must  gravitate  to  the  Cross  of  Christ.  And  if,  on  the 
other  hand,  China  should  remain  pagan  while  adopting 
modern  civilisation,  it  must  as  a  military  Power  threaten 
the  world  as  did  the  Tartar  host  in  the  early  Middle 
Ages.  History  contains  lurid  pages  relating  to  the 
Tartar  devastation,  and  these  are  followed  by  the  terrible 
sequel  of  the  Moslem  deluge  that  almost  submerged 
Europe.  Such  histories  are  trivial  in  comparison  with 
those  which  would  be  enacted  if  the  world  should  be 
destined  to  witness  an  uprising  of  Asia  cultured  by 
Western  learning  but  unconquered  by  Christianity. 

Mr.  Hunt's  pages  must  convince  any  dispassionate 
reader  that  the  time  has  come  for  a  vast  reinforcement  of 
the  missionary  agency.  Heathenism  has  no  resources  in 
itself  for  national  recuperation.  No  pagan  people  can 
spontaneously  originate  its  own  resuscitation  or  its  own 


FOREWORD  9 

resurrection.  The  stimulus  must  come  from  without. 
Japan  would  never  have  stirred  from  its  feudalism  of 
three  thousand  years  but  for  the  impact  of  America, 
initially  applied  by  Commodore  Perry  fifty  years  ago. 
India  would  have  continued  to  cherish  its  Juggernaut 
regime,  if  Carey,  Marshman,  and  "Ward  had  not  gone 
forth  from  England  to  Bengal.  One  hundred  years  ago, 
Morrison  stepped  on  the  shores  of  China,  and  planted 
there  the  Cross  which  persecution  has  not  been  able  to 
uproot.  The  crusade  thus  commenced  is  winning 
victories  all  along  the  line. 


H.U.S.  B 


AUTHOR'S   IXTRODUCTIOX 


The  information  herein  compiled  is  a  mere  (luota  to  tlic 
greater  contribution  of  evidences  which  might  be  amassed 
under  the  title  of  this  book.  It  is  at  one  and  the  same 
time  a  statement  and  an  appeal.  From  its  particular 
view-point  it  represents  the  needs  and  the  call  of  the 
awakening  East. 


In  close  toucli  with  the  Chinese  in  all  classes  of  society, 
and  in  association  with  the  respective  exponents  of  their 
religions,  together  with  a  close  study  of  their  classic 
literature  among  the  native  students,  we  have,  with 
profound  emotion  and  sad  and  thoughtful  heart,  been 
enabled  to  get  an  actual  time-focus  on  the  existing 
conditions. 

It  is  a  long  way  from  the  land  of  Sinim  to  our 
beautiful  Lake  district.     The  contrast  is  beyond  descrip- 


12  AUTHOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

tion.  In  this  quiet  and  restful  oasis,  while  rejuvenating 
and  generating  power  —  the  muse  moved  me  to 
write. 

No  thoughtful  student  of  current  human  history  can 
fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  magnitude  of  the  changes 
which,  in  China,  to-day  represent  nothing  less  than  an 
intellectual  revolution.  It  is  the  harbinger  of  a  new 
life. 

The  horizon  is  aglow  with  vivid  signals.  It  is  evident 
that  God  is  about  to  do  a  ncio  thing  in  China  !  New  and 
superior  movements  arc  affecting  moral,  political,  and 
industrial  centres. 

Never  did  such  splendid  opportunities  present 
themselves  to  the  Church.  In  this  pivotal  moment 
the  vision  of  an  awakening  Church  inspires  me 
to  write ;  and  the  contemplation  of  it  thrills  the 
heart ! 

Under  the  shades  of  overhanging  willows  on  the 
lovely  Windermere,  and  while  listening  to  the  lapping 
of  the  waves  along  its  shores,  and  as  our  boat  swings 
lazily  to  the  tide  on  the   calm,  deep,  unruffled  waters, 


AUTHOR'S  INTRODUCTION  13 

it  is  hard  to  think  that  a  subject  like  the  contents  of 
this  book  could  be  possible  in  such  a  beautiful  world. 
As  the  breezes  stir  and  rustle  the  leaves  and  flowers, 
and  the  sweet  songsters  of  birdland  warble  their  notes, 
the  aroma  of  sweet-scented  evergreens  and  balsams  sifts 
through  the  air ;  and  amid  the  pines,  and  elms,  and 
ash  groves  are  scenes  of  wild  romance,  dotted  with 
homes  of  ancient  peace. 

It  is  as  the  hushing  awe  of  one  of  Nature's  moods 
that  precurses  a  storm.  Our  boat  rocks  by  gentle 
ripples  of  little  tides  that  come  from  unseen  depths. 
The  horizon  is  darkening,  and  threatening  battalions  of 
lowering  clouds  cause  the  trees  to  bend  low  and  moan 
the  music  of  the  forests. 

Is  not  this  symbolic  of  the  portentous  silence  pre- 
ceding the  avalanche  which  is  even  now  ready  to  thunder 
fatefully  from  the  heights  of  heathenism  ?  It  is  the  last 
rally-charge  of  an  ancient  and  defiant  foe.  Its  final 
onslaught  against  the  thin  and  scattered  divisions  of 
Christianity  has  made  imperative  the  grand  union  of  the 
conquering  Church,  and  the  whole  line  is  advancing  in  a 
new,  united  and  strategic  formation  ;  while  from  every 


14  AUTHOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

direction  trumpets  of  conquest  and  paeans  of  victory  are 
reaching  our  ears — 

"He  is  sounding  fortli  the  trumpet  that  can  never  call  retreat, 
Oh,  be  swift,  my  soul,  to  answer  Him,  be  jubilant,  my  feet ; 
Our  God  is  marcldng  on  !  " 

W.  R.  H. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 


I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V, 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 


FOREWORD   BY   REV.  WILLIAM   DURBAN,   B.A. 

author's   INTRODUCTION  . 

THE   NIGHT   OF   ASIA 

THE   BLIGHT   OF   ASIA 

INDEXES  THAT  TELL 

LIGHTS   OF   PAGAN    CREATION 

THE  CHRISTIAN   DISPLACEMENT 

A   STRATEGIC   KEY 

SUPERSTITIONS   AND   ABSURDITIES 

THE   CHURCH   LOYAL   AND   POWERFUL 

THE   ETERNAL   PURPOSE     . 


rioi 
5 

11 

19 

31 

49 

59 

73 

87 

99 

111 

129 


»s 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIOXS 


a  bcddhist  priest 

"  to  an  unknown  god  " 

"these  be  thy  gods" 

a  chinese  pariah 

three  veteran  missionaries  to  china 

imperial  tablet  commending  suicide  of  virtuous  widows 

virgin  and  babe  (from  the  planisphere  at  dendera  in 

EGYPT)  ...... 

CHRISTIAN   GIRLS   IN    THE    "  DOOR   OF   HOPE"   HOME     . 
BLINDFOLDED   IDOLS        ..... 

SKETCH   MADE   FROM  AN  X-RAY  PHOTO  OF  A  CHINESE  WOMAN'S 

FOOT  ...... 

"inasmuch"      ...... 

CHINESE   "golden   LILIES  "        .... 
FOR   THE   RECEPTION   OF   "UNWELCOME   BABIES "   IN   CHINA 
WAITING  !...... 


FAQB 

Frontispiece 


24 
24 
40 
64 
64 

69 
80 
96 

105 
116 
116 
136 
136 


H.U.S. 


17 


THE  NIGHT  OF  ASIA 


'9 


"We  are  living  in  a  time  when  a  great  and  awful  dawn  is 
whitening  above  horizons  which  have  been  shrouded  in  twilight 
and  night,  and  vast  outlines  of  psychological  truth  are  now 
appearing."— Rev.  J.  H.  Jowett,  M.A. 


HEATHENISM    UNDER 

THE    SEARCHLIGHT 


THE  NIGHT  OF  ASIA 

Night-Lights  of  Heathendom. — The  classic  literature 
of  Asia  is  ricli  in  fancy  and  rare  in  thought.  Eastern 
teachers  tell  us  that  only  cultivated  eyes  can  see  its 
beauties,  and  sympathetic  hearts  feel  its  peculiar  inspira- 
tion. It  is  true  that  there  is  much  food  for  reflection 
in  the  works  of  their  poets,  sages,  artists,  and  bards.  But 
while  there  is  much  to  charm  and  attract  sympathetic 
attention  towards  "lower  levels"  and  "different  species" 
among  these  Asian  peoples,  there  is  much  more  to  sadden 
us  when  we  see  their  cold,  loveless,  soulless,  and  hopeless 
lives.  It  is  still  more  pitiful  when  we  discover  in  all 
their  systems  and  rude  beliefs,  the  chilling,  withering 
fact  that  with  them  religion  bears  little  or  no  relation  to 
conduct. 

If  we  penetrate  into  the  sanctum  sandoruin  in  the 
archives  of  Chinese  literature,  we  shall  find  much  that 


22  THE  NIGHT  OF  ASIA 

has  been  termed  "  ethics  suffused  with  emotion."  We 
shall  find  altars  where  "  strange  fire  "  has  been  offered. 
In  their  primitive  conceptions  the  Chinese  seem,  despite 
their  cumbrous  literature,  to  have  sought  for  the  Divine 
in  the  five  elements — ores,  woods,  water,  fire,  and  soil. 
Beyond  the  evidence  of  tlie  senses  their  earliest  religions 
did  not  care  to  speculate.  Hence  the  development  of 
the  grosser  forms  of  idolatry,  as  witness  the  4,000,000 
heathen  deities  and  the  300,000  temples  which  are 
scattered  to-day  among  tlie  teeming  millions. 

Dead  Stars. — Heathenism  is  the  night  of  Asia.  It 
has  been,  too,  such  a  wide,  deep,  black,  and  long  night. 
Across  its  dark  dome  tlie  stars  are  few  and  far  between. 
It  is  only  "  by  kind  permission,"  or  when  poetic  licence 
may  so  sanction,  that  we  may  call  their  lights  "  stars." 
They  remind  us  of  one  of  the  lessons  in  astronomy  which 
teach  that  there  are  many  dead  stars,  which,  having  of 
themselves  died  out,  yet  seem  to  emit  a  little  light. 
This  illusion  is  explained  in  the  fact  of  the  immense 
distance  between  them  and  our  planet,  and  that  it  takes 
centuries  of  years  for  the  light  which  once  shone  out  to 
reach  our  earth. 

"  Were  a  star  quenched  on  higli, 
For  ages  would  its  light, 
Still  travelling  downward  from  the  sky. 
Shine  on  our  mortal  sight." 

So  in  our  sympathetic  approach  to  these  great  and 
wonderful  races  in  the  Far  East,  we  are  led  to  the 
thought,  and  even  to  the  conviction,  that  the  souls  of 
men,  like  the  continents  of  earth,  have  their  darkness 
and  their  light.  Night  and  day  are  common  to  all 
kingdoms.  Lights  differ  from  one  another  in  glory,  the 
more  brilliant  lights  briglitening  our  day,  and  the  lesser 


24 


"To  an  Unknov/n  God" 

Amid  mountain  fastnesses  and  the  sacred  groves  may  be 
seen  these  pathetic  little  altars.  The  devotees  tell  us  the  shen 
(spirit)  may  come  suddenly  to  this  temple.  It  is  open  to  all 
deities.  Lest  they  should  miss  the  ideal  way  in  the  worship 
of  their  millions  of  gods,  the  people  have  set  up  these 
additional  altars,  if  haply  they  might  find  the  truth. 


"  1  hese  be  thy  gods  " 

This  is  a  typical  representation  of  one  of  China's  demons. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  popular  gods  in  the  empire.  This 
grotesque  monster  is  said  to  have  power  over  calamities 
caused  by  fire.  It  is  built  of  mud,  straw,  and  lime-plaster, 
and  painted  in  keeping  with  its  terrible  form.  Offerings  to  it 
are  supposed  to  prevent  fires  presumably  caused  by  carelessness 
or  by  the  lightning  of  retribution. 


•'LEAD,  KINDLY  LIGHT"  25 

lights  guidiDg  and  helping  us  through  our  night.  So  we 
may  use  the  analogy :  these  lesser  lights  are  only  the 
accommodations  before  the  dawn — "  lesser,  as  the  stars 
seem  lesser  than  the  sun,  only  because  our  eyes  are  not 
strong  enough  to  see  them  as  they  really  are — these  God 
gives  us  to  lighten  the  soul's  night." 

Religious  science  seems  to  be  a  common  possession 
of  mankind.  Whether  studied  among  the  rude  and 
lower  races,  or  seen  iu  its  peculiar  settings  and  cherished 
reverence  among  more  cultivated  peoples,  it  presents  the 
greatest  charm,  the  most  solemn  opportunities,  and  withal 
the  surest  method  of  gaining  an  understanding  of  man  in 
his  home,  by  his  shrines,  or  in  the  street ;  and  further- 
more, gives  us  the  best  view  of  his  national,  rational,  and 
natural  cliaracteristics. 

The  Cradle  of  Nations. — Asia  seems  to  have  been  a 
chosen  field  fur  tlie  birthplace  of  nations,  races,  languages, 
and  religions.  Just  as  the  radiations  of  the  science  of 
language  are  toward  one  original  speech,  so  the  radiations 
of  history,  ethnology,  and  philology  point  toward  the 
region  of  the  Euphrates,  and  the  plains  of  Mesopotamia, 
as  being  the  birthplace  of  the  parent  language  and  the 
cradle  of  the  human  race. 

This  should  make  the  study  of  the  religious  systems 
and  philosophies  of  the  East  one  of  no  mean  importance. 
Indeed,  without  a  knowledge  of  the  existing  conditions  in 
these  far  Eastern  fields  of  religious  origins,  beginnings, 
and  first  principles,  one  is  not  able  to  understand  the 
situation  or  suggest  remedial  measures. 

Like  the  Chinese  racial  characteristics,  their  classic  and 
sacred  systems  are  mysterious  and  vague  in  their  origins. 
This  is  one  of  the  places  where  there  is  no  sure  data, 
and  one  in  his  erudite  research  is  reminded  of  the  pilot's 

H.U.S.  D 


26  THE  NIGHT  OF  ASIA 

call  at  sea :  "  No  bottom  ! "  They  have  not  only  lost 
their  historic  origins  in  the  mists  of  legend  where  revela- 
tion and  speculation  are  undistinguishable,  but  they  have 
missed  their  own  purpose,  besides  losing  the  track  and 
force  of  their  original  commission  and  intention. 

No  romance,  however,  is  more  fascinating  to  the  candid 
student  of  social  and  religious  life  than  are  the  actual 
surprises  which  meet  him  at  every  turn  in  the  road  in 
the  realms  of  religious  groves,  pagan  shrines,  temples, 
and  the  altars  by  sacred  mountains.  It  is  there  you  may 
obtain  a  diagnosis  of  man  at  the  best  side  of  his  worst 
nature,  and  at  the  worst  side  of  his  best  ideals. 

Early  Religious  Ideas. — One  walks  with  reverence 
and  with  pity  among  the  ruins  of  these  great  sweeping 
terraces,  amid  the  broken  amphitheatre  of  their  cherished 
beliefs.  One  is  almost  bewitched  with  wonder  at  the 
altar  ruins  that  lie  everywhere,  and  which  are  covered 
with  mildew  and  moss.  Amid  these  overgrowths  of 
centuries  are  found  records  of  priests,  sacrifices,  and  a 
whole  churchyard  of  ritual  which  lie  like  ugly  bulbs  and 
uuweeded  gardens  all  about  us.  It  is  only  the  spiritu- 
ally minded  soul  that  is  able  in  love  to  discern  germ 
and  flower,  height  and  depth ;  and  it  is  given  to  such 
to  see  that 

"Heaven's  most  beauteous  fruits  and  blossoms 
Are  but  growths  from  seeds  of  earth." 

Of  course,  there  is  a  value  appraisement  in  all  these 
contributions  to  truth.  They  are  partial  truths,  lone 
letters  in  the  religious  alphabet,  mysterious  thought- 
images  and  idea-pulsations,  in  which,  amid  its  congeries 
of  superstitions  and  ethical  debris,  one  finds  fact  and 
mythus    undistinguishable,  imperfect    moulds    and    rude 


"AMID  TH'  ENCIRCLING  GLOOM"  27 

shapings,  here  a  little  light  but  no  life,  here  a  ray  of 
hope,  and  there  banks  of  thick  credulity.  There  is  no 
certain  ground,  no  basic  bed-rock  of  truth,  no  sure  word 
of  prophecy,  no  hope  of  pardon  from  the  awful  burden  of 
inexpiable  guilt,  no  Holy  Spirit,  no  articulate  revelation, 
no  inherent  inspiration,  no  Divine  warrant,  no  burning 
bush  or  even  a  still  small  voice.  In  explaining  their 
spiritual  fancies  many  of  the  exponents  of  these  "  broken 
systems "  claim  that  they  feel  and  experience  the  pre- 
sentiment of  "  subtile  pulsations,  aromas,  temperatures, 
mites,  and  filaments  of  characterisation,  which  seem  to 
flood  out  to  them  from  the  shores  of  another  sphere, 
and  beckon  them  to  '  cross  the  bar.' " 

Yes,  when  it  is  seen  that  among  the  millions  of 
Asia — the  now  awakening  Asia — there  is  the  capacity 
to  conceive  of  some  spiritual  ideas  and  ideals,  there 
should  arise  in  our  hearts  the  profoundest  gratitude  to 
God  that  amid  the  gloom — the  world's  dark  night — 
"  God  hath  not  left  Himself  without  a  witness." 

Emerson  is  kind  and  prophetic  when  he  says : 

"No  whisper  of  tlie  Holy  Ghost, 
This  heedless  world  has  ever  lost." 

Voices  in  the  Dark. — The  man  of  Uz  voiced  the 
one  aching  desire  of  all  his  brother  human  beings  when 
he  cried,  "  Oh  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find  Him  ! "  In 
all  continents  man  looks  out  toward  a  power  beyond 
his  own.  This  involves  awful  and  profound  mysteries. 
It  suggests  within  man  the  intuitive  recognition  of  the 
universal  Fatherhood,  and  on  the  other  hand,  by  logical 
sequence,  is,  at  least,  an  adumbration  of  the  universal 
brotherhood.  Nor  should  it  be  strange  that  the  creature 
should  thus  lift  its  eyes  to  the  Creator.     Man  groping 


28  THE  NIGHT  OF  ASIA 

after  God  is  as  pathetic  as  the  fact  that  God's  seeking 
and  reaching  after  man  is  Divine.  It  presents  one  of 
the  most  touching  facts  of  life.^ 

Man  is  a  religious  being.  He  must  worship.  He  is 
constrained  to  pray.  He  is  moved  to  sacrifice.  Voices 
in  wilderness  and  thicket,  signs  of  fire  by  night  and 
cloud  by  day  are  to  him  more  than  fancied  affinities  to 
his  higher  nature.  His  intense  desire  to  penetrate  the 
dark  veil  of  futurity  and  peer  away  into  the  endless  life, 
is  inborn  and  intuitive.  He  seeks  and  must  have,  if 
even  by  a  via  media,  audience  with  his  God.  Every- 
where, and  in  all  directions,  man's  thoughts  climb  away 
from  him  in  the  direction  of  the  Infinite.     They  express 

"The  longings  after  something  lost. 
The  spirit's  yearning  cry  ; 
The  striving  after  better  hopes — 
These  things  can  never  die. " 

Signposts  Skyward. — It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that 
most  of  these  ethnic  faiths  and  unscientific  systems  have 
been  preparatory,  provisional,  and  transient.  Some 
have  been  utterly  useless-  and  injurious.  Most  of 
them  were  disciplinary  and  local.  Each  speaks  in 
the  language,  dresses  in  the  style,  and  lives  the  life 
of  its  native  air.  One  is  reminded  of  the  figure  of  a 
long  line  of  street  lamps  along  the  world's  dark  night. 
Man  is  a  long  way  from  home,  and  is  lost.  Each  lamp 
is  of  value  only  until  its  declining  rays  announce  the 
value  of  its  succeeding  lamp ;  so  these  ancient  religious 

^  "There  is  no  god  whom  I  have  not  honoured  ;  the  incarnate  one  is 
not  equal  to  the  occasion  ;  the  High  Sovereign  does  not  come  to  our  aid." 
— Vide  Shih  King,  iii.  24. 

"Every  man  is  groping  after  the  way  of  life."— Lucretius. 


"LEAD  THOU  ME  ON"  29 

night-lights  have  been  set  up  and  cared  for  l)y  the 
appointed  watchmen  on  their  assigned  beats :  and  who 
shall  dare  say  tliat  any  light  in  a  dark  place  is  not  a 
benediction  ?  Thus  the  Hindoo  finds  his  instrument 
and  illuminant  in  his  Hymn  of  the  JRifj  Veda,  the 
Cliiuese  in  their  Kings  or  classics,  the  Buddhists  in 
their  TriiyitCilca,  the  Parsees  in  the  Gdthds  of  their  Zencl- 
avesta,  the  Moslems  in  their  Koran,  the  magicians  of 
Egypt  in  their  multiple  and  conflicting  'ologies,  the  Jew 
in  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  and  the  Christian  in  the 
New  Testament — all  these,  witli  the  single  exception 
of  the  Christian  scriptures,  ask  the  eternal  question  and 
leave  the  eternal  doubt,  as  they  ask : 

"Is  there  a  bright  home  skyward. 

Where  naught  that  blooms  sliall  die  ? " 

To  be  able  to  solve  these  sericius  problems  is  to  be 
placed  at  one  and  the  same  time  in  the  position  of  a 
debtor,  and  that  of  a  steicard.  In  the  light  of  these  facts, 
what  an  immense  responsibility  —  individual  and  col- 
lective— rests  upon  the  units  of  the  whole  Church  of 
Christ.  Holding,  as  the  custodians  and  stewards,  the 
saving  power  and  redeeming  life  of  the  Gospel  in  its 
hands,  what  awful  consequences  rest  upon  it  should  the 
certainties,  light,  and  realities  of  the  Word  be  kept  back 
from  those  who  sit  in  darkness  and  grope  in  the  shadow 
of  death  ! 


"  Deitii  with  his  own  right  hand  points  out  our  way." — Aratus. 

"  There  is  scarcely  a  religion  in  which  relics  or  surmises  of  the 
unity  of  God  are  not  contained.  Traces  of  this  unity  are  :  among 
the  Hindoos,  Brahma  or  Dyaus ;  among  the  Germans,  Thio  or 
Zio  ;  among  the  Chinese,  Tien  ;  among  the  Etruscans,  Tina  ;  among 
the  Persians,  Ormuzd ;  among  the  Semites,  Chon ;  among  the 
Chaldeans  and  Greeks,  Fate." — Dorner. 


II 

THE  BLIGHT  OF  ASIA 


3> 


"  In  the  course  of  two  years  1  travelled  8000  miles  in  inland 
China,  and  visited  seventy-three  mission  stations.  Everywhere 
small  communities  of  Christians  had  been  formed,  who,  by  their 
abandonment  of  ancestral  worship  and  idolatrous  social  customs, 
were  subjected  to  social  ostracism.  These  converts  live  proper  and 
honest  lives,  they  are  teachable,  greedy  of  Bible  knowledge,  and 
generous  and  anxious  to  preserve  the  purity  of  the  church.  After 
eight  and  a  half  years  of  journeyings  among  Asiatic  peoples,  I  say 
unhesitatingly  that  the  raw  material  out  of  which  the  Holy  Ghost 
fashions  the  Chinese  convert,  and  ofttimes  the  Chinese  martyr,  is 
the  best  stuff  in  Asia."— The  late  Mrs.  Isabella  Bird  Bishop, 
F.R.G.S. 


II 

THE  BLIGHT  OF  ASIA 

Many  years  ago,  while  in  Japan,  we  made  the  ascent 
towards  one  of  Japan's  most  famous  volcanoes,  and 
lodged  at  a  small  village  called  Karuizawa.  It  is  situ- 
ated at  the  base  of  the  largest  active  volcano  in  Japan, 
and  is  called  Asama-yama  (the  Mountain  of  the  Morn- 
ing). The  surrounding  cities  seem  as  minute  paradises 
built  near  a  crater.  The  earth  rings  hollow  at  a  blow. 
AU  around  us  lay  cinders.  Xear  by  is  a  boiling,  hissing, 
inferno-like  spring.  The  air  is  charged  with  sulphuric 
fumes.  In  the  midst  of  beautiful  scenery  rises  a  column 
of  dense  black  smoke  and  steam.  The  rolling  of  lava 
jars  on  the  music  of  summer,  and  the  scent  of  summer 
mingles  with  the  aroma  of  roses  and  chrysanthemums. 
Never  for  a  moment  can  the  traveller  forget  that  beneath 
all  this  opulence  of  power,  colour,  and  fragrance  rages 
a  colossal  furnace.  So  we  were  reminded  of  the  harsh- 
ness, selfishness,  cruelty,  homelessness,  and  infidelity 
found  beneath  the  eloquence  and  poetry  of  these  non- 
Christian  systems ;  and  it  robs  us  of  all  the  joy  in  their 
rare  gifts,  for  we  can  yield  homage  only  to  the  greatness 
that  is  also  goodness. 

Heathenism  is  the  blight  of  Asia. — The  fairest  gardens 
of  the  Orient  are  stricken  with  its  black  rot.     It  repre- 

H.U.S.  33  E 


34  THE  BLIGHT  OF  ASIA 

sents  a  diseased  moral  condition.  There  is  only  one 
remedy — eradication  !  The  debris  of  Confucian,  Bud- 
dhistic, and  Taoistic  systems  is  as  the  parasitic  smut 
and  worm  dust  of  the  East.  In  lands  where  every 
prospect  pleases  and  only  man  is  vile,  this  moral  blight 
has  not  only  to  be  destroyed,  but  buried  deep  in  its 
grave,  and  the  humanity  endangered  by  it  kept  in 
careful  quarantine. 

When  the  old  foresters  of  Europe  found  that  the  dis- 
eased oak  stumps  and  dead  roots  were  a  fertile  source 
of  infection  to  the  new  root  stock,  they  decided  it  was 
the  part  of  wisdom  to  dig  them  out  and  burn  them. 
The  lesson  is  patent.  It  is  not  a  case  where  the 
gardener  can  prune  off  a  few  excrescences  and  let  the 
sick  plant  grow.  The  grubs  and  deterrents  in  the 
infected  and  diseased  moral  systems  of  the  East  must 
be  rooted  out.  There  is  little  of  value  in  paganism, 
either  in  its  creeds  or  practices,  to  be  utilised,  adapted, 
or  adopted. 

The  testimony  of  the  late  Mrs.  Isabella  Bird  Bishop, 
F.R.G.S.,  is  given  in  the  following  words : — 

"  One  thing  which  is  painfully  impressive  is  the  terror 
which  encloses  the  people  of  the  East :  the  terror  which 
ensnares  Korea  and  great  part  of  China.  I  allude  to  the 
terror  of  dead  ancestors,  and  of  what  they  can  inflict 
upon  them ;  of  demons  and  of  the  forces  of  nature,  all 
of  which  involve  systems  of  worship  and  sacrifice.  In 
Korea,  people  scarcely  dare  to  stir  after  the  sun  has 
set,  from  terror  of  demons  who  inhabit  the  earth,  fire, 
and  water  ! " 

Heathenism  is  hugely  deficient  in  common  sense,  and 
awfully  banki'upt  in  purity  of  motive.  The  sense  of  the 
true,   the    good,   and    the    beautiful,   is   either    dead    or 


THE  BLIND  CAVE  OF  ETERNAL  NIGHT       35 

arrested.  Its  normal  condition  is  ignorance  and  fear. 
It  has  trampled  on  the  flower  of  sentiment  and  exalted 
the  lowest  passions  even  in  its  child-life.  It  has  en- 
throned ignorance,  crowned  inferiority,  tainted  man's 
ideals,  and  smirched  his  ambitions. 

Soulless  and  Songless. — Heathenism  is  cheerless, 
soulless,  and  songless.  Life  is  a  mere  negation,  and 
every  eddy  in  its  dark  current  is  magnified  into  a  veritable 
maelstrom.  It  is  faded,  bloomless,  dead  beyond  recall ! 
It  has  crushed  out  every  upward  thought,  and  de- 
stroyed the  bright,  imaginative  faculties  of  the  most 
aesthetic  people  in  the  world.  In  its  programme  the 
horrible  rather  than  the  gentler  aspects  of  nature  have 
loomed  up  in  their  minds.  It  has  relegated  God  to 
oblivion,  and  given  to  the  masses  deities  without  number, 
which  are  inactive,  impersonal,  and  valueless  ghosts  of 
gods.  It  has  no  sense  of  a  Saviour  going  about  doing 
good.  Its  idea  of  a  god  is  selfish  and  eternal  repose. 
Nowhere  does  it  teach  that  the  world  is  God's  gift  to  the 
sons  of  men,  to  be  enjoyed,  governed,  and  subdued  by 
them.  Even  of  the  most  fragrant  flowers,  there  is  a  mere 
dull  and  bleared  appreciation.  There  is  no  appreciation 
of  science  and  art.  Its  people  are  battling  with  dark 
enigmas,  and  dying  less  of  age  and  disease  than  of  the 
depression  behind  the  great  black  curtain  of  death  and 
hopelessness. 

The  only  voice  of  praise  heard  in  heathendom  is  from 
the  birds  in  the  trees,  and  from  the  cattle  on  a  thousand 
hills.  All  else  is  vocal  with  the  solemn  dirge  that  issues 
from  "  the  blind  cave  of  eternal  night."  As  in  the 
ancient  temples  of  Greece  and  Eome,  so  in  China,  re- 
ligion is  merely  utilised,  and  even  the  gods  are  employed. 
Thieves  are  suppliants  at   the   altars  for   assistance   in 


36  THE  BLIGHT  OF.  ASIA 

their  robberies.  Legions  of  vulgar  priesthood  terrorise 
and  dupe  the  people.  They  live  as  in  a  nightmare,  and 
are  like  Frankenstein  followed  by  his  demon : 

"As  one  who  on  a  lonely  I'oad 

Doth  walk  with  fear  and  dread, 
And  having  once  looked  round,  walks  on, 

And  no  more  turns  his  head. 
Because  he  fears  a  frightful  fiend 

May  close  behind  him  tread." 

The  blank  idiotic  look  in  the  faces  of  these  "  spiritual 
advisers "  is  pitiful  to  behold.  They  are  no  more  in- 
fluenced by  a  moral  sense  than  are  the  waves  of  the  sea. 
They  know  no  sense  of  sin,  and  feel  no  need  of  a  Saviour. 
They  teach  the  people  to  pray,  not  for  a  clean  heart,  but 
for  good  luck,  riches,  and  many  sons.  They  believe  and 
teach  that  celibacy  is  the  loftiest  state,  and  mendicancy 
the  highest  idea  of  religious  life.  The  light  that  is  in 
them  is  darkness,  and  oh,  how  great  is  that  darkness ! 
Over  the  doors  of  their  temples  might  be  written  the 
solemn  words  of  Dante : 

"All  hope  abandon — ye  who  enter  here." 

Heathenism  under  the  Apostle's  X-ray. —  That 
other  lurid  picture,  drawn  by  an  eye-witness,  that  great 
Euro-Asiatic  missionary,  the  Apostle  Paul,  in  his  Epistle 
to  the  Romans,  is  a  true  representation  of  heathenism. 
Too  great  to  be  moved  by  the  finely  attenuated  and 
ethereal  fantasies  of  Greek  and  Eoman  systems,  the 
Apostle  writes  of  them : 

"  They  are  without  excuse  ;  because  that,  when  they 
knew  God,  they  glorified  Him  not  as  God,  neither  were 
thankful ;  but  became  vain  in  their  imaginations,  and 
their  foolish  heart  was  darkened.     Professing  themselves 


ARRESTED  DEVELOPMENT  37 

to  be  wise,  they  became  fools ;  and  changed  the  glory  of 
the  uncorruptible  God  into  an  image  made  like  to  cor- 
ruptible man,  and  to  birds,  and  four-footed  beasts,  and 
creeping  things.  "Wherefore  God  also  gave  them  up 
to  uncleanness  through  the  lusts  of  their  own  hearts,  to 
dishonour  their  own  bodies  between  themselves :  who 
changed  the  truth  of  God  into  a  lie,  and  worshipped  and 
served  the  creature  more  than  the  Creator,  who  is  blessed 
for  ever." 

Then  follows  the  unspeakable  list  of  their  sensuality, 
wickedness,  covctousness,  maliciousness,  envy,  murder, 
deceit  —  haters  of  God,  maUgnant,  despiteful,  proud, 
boasters,  inventors  of  evil  things,  disobedient,  without 
natural  affection,  and  immerciful.  "What  an  awful 
picture !  Milton  seems  to  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  its 
unutterable  woes  when  he  wrote : 

"  Black  it  stood  as  uight, 
Fierce  as  ten  furies  ;   terrible  as  hell  ! " 

A  Lost  Art. — This  is  the  more  apparent  when  it  is 
seen  that  in  all  the  farrago  of  nonsense  in  heathenism, 
the  inner  religion  of  revelation  is  a  lost  art,  and  the  outer 
ritual  of  their  worship  looks  to  a  dead  past.  This  has 
caused  spiritual  stagnation,  and  arrested  development 
in  all  phases  of  the  nation's  life.  Particularly  in  China, 
Manchuria,  and  Korea  there  is  an  utter  ignorance  of 
Divine  laws,  which  ignorance  keeps  men  in  slavery, 
and  causes  millions  to  perish  from  famine,  pestilence, 
and  rebellion ;  and  that,  too,  in  one  of  the  richest 
countries  of  the  earth. 

IMillions  are  lost  per  annum  through  epidemics. 
Cities  of  a  million  inhabitants  have  no  sewers,  no  water 
supply,  no  street  regulations,  and  no  organised  lighting. 


38  THE  BLIGHT  OF  ASIA 

The  filth  and  stenches  are  indigenous.  The  streets  are 
steaming,  stinking,  and  full  of  disease,  and  lepers  openly 
sell  their  sweets  to  the  children.  The  only  scavengers 
are  the  dogs,  which  live  with  the  pariahs  and  outcasts, 
and  share  their  victuals  on  the  streets.  This  is  the  con- 
dition of  hundreds  of  crowded  cities,  where  plague, 
cholera,  and  malignant  fevers  find  the  most  congenial 
soil  for  the  rapid  growth  of  their  vile  germs.  In  a  word, 
heathenism  is  like  a  vast  lazar  house 

"  Wherein  are  laid 
Numbers  of  all  diseased,  all  maladies 
Of  ghastly  spasm,  and  racking  tortures, 
Of  heart-sick  agony,  all  feverish  kinds, 
Demoniac  frenzy,  moping  melancholy, 

.    And  moonstruck  madness." 

Homeless  and  Loveless.  —  There  are  no  homes  in 
heathendom.  Even  the  word  for  "  home  "  in  the  native 
hieroglyphics  is  made  up  of  "  cover "  and  "  hog,"  which 
when  placed  together  naturally  signify  a  "  pigsty."  No 
higher  critic  would  dare  to  assail  the  correctness  of 
this  derivation. 

From  these  residences  pains  are  taken  to  exclude  too 
liberal  a  supply  of  air  and  sunlight.  Suicide  is  encour- 
aged and  infanticide  common.  In  some  parts  polygamy 
and  polyandry  are  also  practised.  In  the  homes  of  the 
more  wealthy  mandarins  the  eunuchs  have  charge  of  the 
harems  and  zenanas,  and  indulge  in  all  their  effeminate 
and  barbarous  practices.  Although  chastity  is  a  virtue 
highly  praised,  there  is  little  purity  and  innocence  in 
its  maidenhood. 

What  a  contrast  does  Christendom  present,  where 
the  home  is  the  child's  true  paradise,  and  the  mother  its 
most  tender  minister  ! 


40 


A  Chinese  Pariah 

An  opium-eater,  an  outcast,  vermin-covered  and  loathsome, 
he  appealed  to  the  author  for  help.  For  the  compensation  of 
a  few  Chinese  cash  he  stood  suspiciously  before  the  camera. 
We  gave  him  food,  and  spoke  a  few  words  of  cheer  to  him ; 
but  the  light  of  his  reason  seemed  to  have  gone  out. 

Chinese  streets  are  often  crowded  with  these  hopeless 
creatures,  who  are  often  blind  and  leprous. 


V 


I 


MOTHERLESS  AND  CHEERLESS  41 

In  Asia  women  are  merely  toys  to  be  used  as  sport. 
In  seraglio  and  palace  they  live  and  die  in  jealousy, 
lust,  and  ignorance.  Motherhood  is  a  negligible  quality. 
There  is  no  blossom  in  its  child  life ;  and  it  has  produced 
more  craven-hearted  men  and  women  than  are  to  be 
found  anywhere  outside  of  pagan  lands.  The  language 
of  the  boys  and  girls  on  the  streets  is  disgusting  and 
obscene  beyond  expression.  Citing  a  single  instance  in 
support  of  these  facts,  the  following  is,  at  least,  interest- 
ing. One  of  the  prominent  native  newspapers  recently 
contained  the  following  advertisement : — 

GIRL  FOR  SALE  ! 

A  girl  of  sixteeu,  and  of  pleasant  appearance,  whose  parents  recently 
died,  ofTers  to  sell  herself,  in  order  to  raise  funds  to  provide  for  their 
burial  in  becoming  style. — Apply,  etc. 

Such  cases  are  numerous.  It  is  not  an  abnormal 
condition  in  the  social  ana  religious  life  of  the  people. 
But  it  is  a  sad  conmientar}'  on  the  rude  delusions  as 
well  as  the  painful  devotion  in  which  these  votaries  of 
crude  forms  of  religion  command  our  sympathetic  attention. 

The  little  children  live  in  dread  of  the  pictures  of 
the  Buddhist  hells  shown  by  the  mendicant  priests — 
exhibiting  regions  with  lakes  of  blood,  hills  of  knives, 
mortars  for  grinding  sinners,  tongue-puUing  instruments, 
bridges  of  snakes,  cauldrons  of  boiling  oil,  saws  for 
cleaving  bodies  asunder,  villages  of  wild  dogs,  and  beds 
of  serpents.  Such  a  priest — a  man  ? — stripped  of  all  his 
disguises  could  not  be  placed  anywhere  in  Christendom 
without  his  being  looked  upon  as  a  monster,  or  as  a 
curiosity. 

In  his  able  work  on  ProUems  of  the  Far  East, 
Lord  Curzon  says,  in  writing  of  the  Buddhist  priests : 

H.U.S.  F 


42  THE  BLIGHT  OF  ASIA 

"  Their  piety  is  an  illusion,  and  their  pretensions  a 
fraud.  They  are  the  outcasts  of  society.  The  expression 
on  their  faces  is  one  of  idiotic  absorption.  This  is  not 
surprising,  considering  that  of  the  words  which  they 
intone  scarcely  one  syllable  do  they  themselves  under- 
stand. The  mass-book  is  a  dead  letter  to  them,  for  it 
is  written  in  Sanscrit  or  Pali,  which  they  can  no  more 
decipher  than  fly.  The  words  they  chant  are  merely 
equivalents  in  sound,  and  as  used  in  Chinese  are  totally 
devoid  of  sense." 

A  Buddhist  proverb  aptly  says : 

"  Worship  the  gods  as  if  they  came  ; 
But  if  you  don't,  it's  all  the  same." 

Gilded  Paganism. — Heathenism  is  not  all  in  the 
alleys  and  dens  of  China ;  it  is  in  the  high  places, 
palaces,  and  schools.  Never  once  may  it  be  termed 
"  simple  and  innocent  vulgarity."  The  literati  may  be 
ashamed  of  heathenism,  but  they  are  bound  to  it.  In  some 
of  the  homes  of  the  wealthy  classes  the  most  distressing 
ignorance  abounds.  Men  and  women  of  influence  and 
affluence  are  daily  and  nightly  pursued  and  hunted  by 
the  ghosts  of  their  own  mental  creation.  Nor  is  this 
surprising  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  Imperial 
Palace  sanctions  the  annual  expenditure  of  four  hundred 
million  ounces  of  silver  for  idolatrous  practices.  It  is 
not  an  easy  matter  to  dethrone  heathenism,  when  its 
grossest  features  are  yet  aided,  financed,  and  promulgated 
by  Imperial  edict !  What  does  it  mean  that  two  of 
China's  highest  and  most  liberal  officials  should  commend 
the  suicide  of  another  Viceroy's  eldest  son  before  his 
mother's  coffin  ?  There  was  also  an  Imperial  decree 
issued    quite    recently,    ordering    one    of    the    strongest 


'«BY  THEIR  FRUITS,"  ETC.  43 

governors  iu  the  empire  to  burn  sticks  of  Tibetan  incense 
before  the  dragon  god  of  the  Yellow  River. 

Members  of  the  Imperial  Academy,  princes,  statesmen, 
and  the  scholar-laureate  of  the  empire  will  alike  tell 
their  children  that  each  has  three  souls,  and  that  at 
decease  one  goes  to  the  coffin,  one  to  the  ancestral 
tablet,  and  the  other  to  the  spirit  world.  The  state 
religion  is  a  mere  highwav  to  officialdom,  with  all  its 
open  corruption.  The  students  look  upon  its  classics  as 
a  code  of  ethics  to  be  memorised,  and  it  is  not  im- 
portant that  it  should  sustain  any  relation  to  conduct 
or  character.  It  will  at  once  be  seen,  therefore, 
that  the  offers  of  some  of  the  Chinese  universities 
to  effect  an  entente  cordiale  with  Christianity  can  in 
no  way  be  accepted.  Is  it  a  thing  thought  to  be 
possible,  that  Christianity  can  enter  into  an  alliance 
with  such  systems  as  have  stooped  to  such  a  final  baseness 
as  would  bankrupt  the  art  of  indignation  to  denounce  ? 

Instances  are  ever  coming  to  the  front  which  prove 
the  deep  hold  heatlienism  has,  not  only  upon  the 
illiterate  millions,  but  upon  the  so-called  dite  of  the 
empire.  What  shall  we  say  of  the  recent  action  of  one 
of  the  high  mandarins  !  It  is  reported  in  the  native  papers 
that  his  only  daughter  died.  She  was  in  love  with  a 
famous  actor,  and  because  she  could  not  marry  him, 
pined  away. 

The  father  determined,  in  accordance  with  heathen 
usages,  that  her  favourite  slave-girl  should  accompany  her 
into  the  nether  world.  He  forthwith  ordered  his  body- 
guard to  beat  her  to  death.  She  thereupon  pleaded  to 
be  allowed  to  commit  suicide,  with  opium  or  any  other 
poison.  The  mandarin,  with  determination,  said  that  this 
could  not  be,  as  that  if  she  committed  suicide  she  would 


44  THE  BLIGHT  OF  ASIA 

not  be  so  free  to  attend  her  mistress.  The  paper, 
continuing  the  story,  stated  that  at  this  juncture  the 
mandarin  became  so  enraged,  because  by  the  bamboo- 
beating  process  the  girl  died  so  slowly,  that  he  himself 
finished  the  ghastly  deed.  This,  however,  is  no  worse  an 
evidence  of  the  deeply  rooted  pagan  vices,  than  the  record 
of  one  of  the  highest  mandarins  recently  drinking  the 
blood  of  a  famous  decapitated  brigand  ;  but  it  shows 
what  savage  instincts  still  linger  in  the  minds  of 
Chinese  high  officials. 

Devotion  to  Heathenism. — Here  is  another  instance 
of  the  delusion  of,  as  well  as  the  devotion  to,  heathen- 
ism, and  it  shows  some  pathetic  sidelights  of  pagan  life. 
Living  in  a  monastery,  near  Hankow,  where  we  visited 
her  not  long  since,  lives  an  aged  Buddhist  nun.  Lao- 
ni-gu  is  ninety  years  of  age.  She  is  known  all  over  the 
central  provinces  of  China.  Her  history  is  one  of 
unprecedented  devotion  to  her  cult.  In  early  life  she 
became  a  nun,  took  her  vows  and  entered  the  monastery. 
Almost  fanatical  heroisms  in  penances  and  pilgrimages 
distinguished  her. 

On  one  occasion,  when  she  thought  Buddha  doubted 
her  sincerity,  she  called  upon  him,  with  an  oath,  to  test 
her,  even  to  the  mutilation  of  her  body.  All  at  once, 
said  the  people,  the  idol  took  a  deep  breath  (it  was  the 
breathings  and  the  false  voice  of  one  of  the  priests 
behind  the  great  image)  and  commanded,  saying :  "  If 
you  are  a  true  child  of  the  Nirvdna,  take  a  sacrificial 
knife  and  strike  off  your  right  hand."  The  poor  deluded 
woman,  startled  by  this  drastic  action,  called  out  again 
to  ascertain  of  the  idol  if  such  sacrifice  was  imperative. 
The  superstitious  people,  and  the  woman,  being  under 
the  influence  of  demonoiogy,  and  gulled  by  the  deceptive 


AT  PAGAN  ALTARS 


45 


priests,  heard  the  voice  again,  and  in  stern  tones  she  was 
commanded  to  cut  it  off. 

At  this  crisis,  many  interfered,  hoping  to  appease  the 
enraged  deity.  But  Lao-ni-gu  was  taking  her  religion 
at  cost  price.  She  struck  a  steady  blow,  only  half 
severing  the  hand  from  the  wrist,  the  blood  being  spilled 
all  round  the  sacrificial  altar.  In  anguish  and  pain  she 
cried  :  "  Is  this  enough  ?  "  but  being  assured  that  absolute 
obedience  and  surrender  were  demanded,  she  raised  the 
bloody  knife  again,  and  with  a  well-aimed  ])low  and  a 
piercing  scream  she  laid  the  mutilated  hand  upon  the 
floor  of  the  temple.  It  is  a  quarter  of  a  century  since 
that  deed  was  committed,  but  the  hand  still  hangs  about 
her  neck,  suspended  by  a  crimson  cord.  She  had 
preserved  the  hand  in  rice-alcohol  and  dried  it  in  the 
sun,  and  threading  it  with  the  silken  cord,  has  worn  it 
ever  since ! 

Such  instances  afford  glimpses  into  the  inner  chambers 
of  heathenism  and  show  up  some  of  the  actualities  of 
pagan  life.  They  suggest  to  our  minds  the  trenchant 
thought  that  when  the  millions  of  China  know  Jesus 
as  we  know  and  love  Him,  their  quenchless  enthusiasm 
and  ardent  devotion  will  bring  out  many  glad  surprises. 

A  Buddhist  Devotee. — While  recently  itinerating  in 
the  Chii  Cheo  district,  in  the  province  of  Anhwei,  Central 
China,  it  was  our  privilege  to  witness  an  instance  of 
remarkable  devotion  to  heathenism.  A  Buddhist  de- 
votee, travel-stained,  footsore,  and  wearied,  a  would-be 
hermit-priest  of  more  than  fifty  summers,  was  travelling 
alone  on  a  mission  to  Tai-shan,  the  high  sacred  mountain 
in  the  province  of  Shantung. 

One  of  the  strangest  things  about  the  old,  rugged 
pilgrim  was  his  patriarchal  and  dignified  bearing.      He 


46  THE  BLIGHT  OF  ASIA 

might  easily  have  passed  for  an  incarnation  of  the  Hindoo 
S'akyamuni  Gautama.  The  priest  was  well  marked 
with  the  insignia  of  his  fraternity,  and  on  his  stolid 
yellow  fa^e  could  be  read  expressions  of  'determination, 
far-away  hope,  and  almost  heroism.  He  paid  scant 
attention  to  my  salutation,  for 

"  The  vows 
Of  Heaven  were  on  his  heart  ;  nor  ayouM  he  stay, 
To  chance  liis  hope  on  other  creeds,  or  jjlay 
With  shadows — till  the  end." 

It  was  a  picture  for  an  artist  or  a  theme  for  a  poet. 
With  the  golden  sunset  glow  behind  the  temples  on  the 
hills,  and  the  quiet  evening  landscape,  the  scene  was 
thought-creating  and  solenm.  In  his  hand  he  carried  a 
miniature  table  holding  an  incense  urn.  Around  his 
neck  and  over  his  loosely  folded  gown  were  beads  and 
seals  of  secret  religious  significance.  With  dignified 
step  he  moves — one,  two,  three,  four,  five  and  six  paces, 
and  then  makes  a  most  reverential  prostration.  This 
was  to  be  repeated  each  step  of  the  pilgrimage — six 
steps  and  a  prostration,  for  the  entire  journey  of  the 
thousand-mile-penance  tour. 

Occasionally  the  prostrations  were  longer  and  the 
prayers  more  fervent.  Incense  was  lit  and  kept  burning. 
It  was  impossible  for  me  to  leave  the  scene.  As  he  arose 
from  one  of  these  bowings,  we  politely  repeated  our  saluta- 
tion, and  gaining  his  confidence  by  reference  to  the  fact 
that  his  religion  and  ours  were  not  native  to  China,  we 
touched  a  responsive  chord  in  his  heart ;  and  we  were 
soon  engaged  in  conversation. 

The  aged  pilgrim  of  Asia  and  the  Christian  missionary 
at  least  credited  each  other  with  sincerity.  He  told  us 
that  his  task  of  thus  slowly  measuring  worship-steps  for 


IN  SEARCH  OF  IMMORTALITY  47 

three  and  a  half  years,  through  cold  and  heat,  sunshine 
and  storm,  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  until  the  sacred 
mountain  in  the  eastern  hills  was  reached,  would  secure 
to  him  a  high  rank  in  the  Buddhist  coterie,  and  a  place 
in  the  shining  ranks  of  the  immortals. 

With  the  utmost  delicacy,  and  with  the  winged  prayer 
to  God  for  guidance  and  wisdom,  we  spoke  to  him  of  the 
compassionate  love  of  God,  and  of  man's  need  of  salvation. 
The  idea  of  a  Mediator  (Middleman)  arrested  him,  as 
well  as  the  character  and  mission  of  Christ  as  the  fully 
accredited  Saviour ;  and  as  the  light  seemed  at  times  to 
dawn  on  his  clouded  mind,  our  hopes  were  almost  raised 
that  he  might  "  turn  again  and  believe " :  but  he  was 
clinging  with  tenacious  pride  to  the  rites,  symbols,  and 
traditions  of  the  fathers.  He  had  set  his  face  towards 
the  sacred  mountain  —  where  the  fathers  worshipped ; 
and,  to  that  purpose,  and  with  a  persistency  and  con- 
secration that  would  put  to  shame  so  much  of  our 
nominal  Christian  endeavour,  this  heathen  devotee 
pressed  forward,  allured  by  the  fantastic  will-o'-the-wisp 
lights  of  pagan  creation. 


"  So  much  stress  have  all  visible  past  ages  laid  on  worship  that 
they  have,  at  almost  boundless  expense,  dedicated  to  it  the  choicest 
work  of  the  sculptor,  the  painter,  the  architect,  the  musician,  and 
the  poet.  Such  temples  as  that  of  Belus  at  Babylon,  of  Isis  at 
Memphis,  of  Diana  at  Ephesus,  of  Minerva  at  Athens,  and  of 
Jehovah  at  Jerusalem,  are  silent  witnesses.  Such  cathedrals  as 
those  of  Eome,  Milan,  Cologne,  Moscow,  and  London— indeed,  a 
host  of  palaces  of  God  bestarring  all  Christendom,  with  its  grand 
architecture  and  crystallised  worship,  seem  to  tempt  men  to  worship 
the  builders.  To  aid  the  worship  for  which  these  costly  structures 
have  been  raised,  have  been  wrought  the  bravest  works  of  sculptors 
and  painter?,  from  Phidias  and  Apelles  to  Angelo  and  Eaphael. 
To  aid  the  same  worship  have  been  prepared  the  noblest  strains  of 
poetry  and  music  that  ever  voiced  human  emotion,  from  David  and 
Asaph  to  Mozart  and  Handel.  It  is  a  loud  testimony  to  the  exceed- 
ing value  of  worship,  but  it  glorifies  the  external ;  and  in  view  of 
the  vast  needs  of  an  unevangelised  world,  is  too  large  an  outlay 
of  pains  and  genius  and  gold."— Author  of  Ecce  Ccelum  on  "  Religious 
Worship." 


Ill 

INDEXES  THAT  TELL 


H.U.S.  '♦9 


"  I  made  a  study  of  missionary  work  in  China.  I  took  a  man-of- 
war  and  visited  almost  every  open  port  in  the  Empire.  At  each  of 
these  places  I  visited  and  inspected  every  mission  station.  ...  I 
saw  the  missionaries,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  in  their  homes.  I 
unqualifiedly,  and  in  the  strongest  language  that  tongue  can  utter, 
give  to  these  men  and  women,  who  are  living  and  dying  in  China, 
and  in  the  Far  East,  my  full  and  unadulterated  commendation.  In 
China  the  missionaries  are  the  leaders  in  every  charitable  work." — 
Hon.  Charles  Denby,  former  United  States  Minister. 


Ill 

INDEXES  THAT  TELL 

There  is  an  old  Oriental  proverb  which  says :  "  If  you 
wish  to  be  sure  of  your  way  through  forest  or  mountain 
passes,  then  ask  the  man  who  has  just  come  that 
way." 

There  is  a  considerable  amount  of  sound  common- 
sense  in  this  little  couplet.  It,  at  least,  points  to  a  safe, 
sure,  and  scientific  method  of  inquiry.  It  calls  to  mind 
the  condensation  by  Tennyson  of  the  two  well-known 
lines  of  Horace : 

"Tilings  seen  are  weightier  than  things  heard." 

Heathenism  under  the  searchlight  is  an  anachronism. 
Its  own  devotees  are  forsaking  it.  As  a  system  of 
superstitions  the  enlightened  are  now  ashamed  of  it. 
Still,  as  a  condition,  it  is  neither  well  understood,  nor  is 
it  easily  capable  of  explanation. 

As  there  are  some  effects  that  the  finest  artists  cannot 
produce,  and  certain  causes  that  scientists  cannot  trace, 
so  there  are  certain  phases  of  life  in  heathen  lands  that 
cannot  be  well  described.  Sometimes  contradictory, 
often  fascinating  in  its  aesthetic  forms,  always  thought- 
compelling,  the  little  glints  of  half  evidences  that  shine 
out  of  its  dark  chinks  must  be  carefully  studied,  and  a 

SI 


52  INDEXES  THAT  TELL 

time-focus  rather  than  a  snap-shot  picture  be  taken  if 
equitable  results  are  to  be  obtained.  Like  most  other 
things,  it  has  its  negative  as  well  as  its  positive  side ; 
and  the  thoughtful  student  of  races,  religions,  and 
nations  will  readily  see  that  we  must  judge  the  less 
fortunate  peoples  with  due  respect  to  their  heredity, 
education,  and  environment.  Their  systems  must  be 
tested  with  due  regard  to  the  time  of  their  historic 
setting,  and  the  circumstances  in  which  they  took  on 
their  colour,  form,  and  hfe  must  be  understood  if  they 
are  to  be  appreciated. 

No  Romance  about  it. — Since,  then,  in  the  considera- 
tion of  this  subject,  facts  must  be  the  only  legal  tender, 
we  shall  endeavour  to  state  in  terms  as  plain  and  un- 
varnished as  possible  what  heathenism  has  done,  what 
it  is  doing,  and  what  it  proposes  to  do. 

There  is  no  romance  about  it.  All  dreams  and 
pictures  of  the  fairest  gardens  of  the  Orient,  with 
their  minarets  and  pagodas,  temples  and  pavilions, 
fountains  and  palaces,  must  be  dismissed  from  the  mind, 
if  we  are  to  get  an  actual  focus  on  heathenism. 

Over  its  pretty  landscapes,  into  its  densely  packed 
cities,  o'er  its  cloud-capped  hills,  across  its  vast  plains, 
back  into  those  high-walled  homes,  into  the  actual 
conditions,  and  into  the  inner  sympathies  of  its  heart- 
life,  among  its  women,  children,  and  bread-winners,  by 
its  graveyards,  schools,  workshops,  prisons,  courts,  and 
pantheons — aye,  even  into  its  harems  we  must  go,  in 
order  to  see,  and  know,  and  feel  the  sorrows  of 
heathenism.  "Tlie  test  of  any  religious,  political,  or 
educational  system,"  says  Amiel,  "  is  the  man  it  pro- 
duces." This  is  a  scientific,  logical,  and  natural  argu- 
ment.     In  pagan  lands  the   product  is   not  difficult  of 


THE  PRODUCT  OF  HEATHENISM     53 

recognition ;  for  in  its  arena  of  anarchy  and  unblusliing 
shame,  lie  the  wrecks  of  humanity,  the  fools  of  the 
universe,  and  the  derelicts  of  society. 

Heathenism  is  not  a  mere  passive  influence  ;  it  is 
actual,  defiant,  and  devilish.  The  power  of  its  entrenched 
evil  cannot  be  exaggerated.  The  pantheons  of  China, 
Japan,  and  Korea  are  furnished  with  millions  of 
gods,  some  of  the  forms  and  acts  attributed  to  which 
would  be  sufficient,  in  any  land  that  claims  civilisation, 
to  send  a  man  to  prison,  or  sentence  him  to  be  hanged. 

In  these  things  it  is  bestial,  loveless,  cruel,  and  without 
natural  affection.  It  is,  even  in  its  best  aspects,  pro- 
foundly depraved.  Its  moral  precepts  are  for  the  most 
part  vague  and  illusory ;  its  few  solitary  sparks  of  truth 
an  i^nis  fatuus ;  its  promises  a  delusion  ;  its  canons  a 
mythology;  its  penalties  a  brut  urn  fid  men;  and  its  vices 
are  writ  so  large  in  the  social  life,  that  their  own  votaries 
do  not  dare  to  give  them  recognition. 

Even  amid  the  more  religious  associations  of  its 
temples  and  pagodas,  one  cannot  fail  to  experience 
that  refrigerating  sense  of  the  absence  of  love  and 
truth.  They  represent  cold,  lonely,  uncanny  haunts  of 
evil  influences  where  the  owls  dwell  and  where  the 
satyrs  dance — 

"A  pathless  desert,  dusk  with  horrid  shades." 

The  Night  of  Asia. — Heathenism  is  the  night  of  Asia. 
That  immortal  and  classic  study  in  Dante's  Inferno  is 
a  mere  dream  compared  with  the  awful  actualities  of 
pagan  life.  Goodness  and  truth  are  its  absent  quali- 
ties, despair  its  resultant  condition,  and  der.th  its 
total  fact.  Common  decency  would  forbid  too  graphic 
a    description    of    that    part   of    its    worship   in    which 


54  INDEXES  THAT  TELL 

its  bestiality  is  covered  with  the  glamour  of  a 
religious  act.  All  that  can  be  conceived  by  filth, 
murder,  lying,  demonology  with  .  all  its  canonised 
sin,  are  its  natural  products.  Like  a  putrid  sewer, 
it  has  become  a  channel  for  the  conveyance  of  its  own 
refuse.  Strange  enough  would  it  seem  that  such  a 
system  should  permeate  the  very  heart  and  core  of 
the  social  life  of  the  people.  Stranger  still  is  it  that 
the  ordinary  devotee  will  laugh  at  his  deity,  and  yet 
fear  him  with  the  greatest  superstition.  Nor  is  it 
considered  by  the  worshipper  of  idols  to  be  in  any 
sense  contradictory  to  his  moral  nature  that,  in  his 
eating,  travel,  marriage  laws,  theatricals,  and  even  in 
his  deeds  and  lust  of  blood,  there  is  a  deep  and  subtle 
religious  significance.  Nor  do  the  Orientals  look  with 
any  indifference  on  the  claims  of  priest  and  temple  to 
their  generosity  and  sacrifice.  In  every  province,  city, 
and  village  the  wealth  that  is  spent  in  great  heathen 
festivals  is  enormous.  These  are  always  accompanied 
with  extravagant  and  awe-inspiring  ceremonies. 

Speaking  of  the  religious  systems  of  the  Chinese  and 
their  influence  on  the  race,  Sir  Thomas  Wade,  whose 
scholarly  insight,  and  long  residence  in  the  East,  enables 
him  to  speak  with  authority,  says : 

"  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  admit  that  the  Chinese 
have  a  knowledge  of  the  true  God,  as  we  understand 
that  expression.  I  go  farther ;  if  religion  is  held  to 
mean  more  than  mere  ethics,  I  deny  that  the  Chinese 
have  a  religion.  They  have  indeed  a  cult,  or  rather  a 
mixture  of  cults,  but  no  creed ;  innumerable  varieties 
of  puerile  idolatries,  at  which  they  are  ready  enough  to 
laugh,  but  which  they  dare  not  disregard." 

Incongruities. — Occasionally,  and  from  a  few  popular 


«* WEIGHED  IN  THE  BALANCES"  55 

authors,  or  from  the  artistic  pen  of  some  tourist  au 
galop,  heathenism  has  been  re-christened  with  some 
fantastic  name,  and  received  quite  a  little  bolstering  up. 
Sir  Edwin  Arnold  was  enamoured  of  this  ethical  will-o'- 
the-wisp.  Others,  flirting  with  the  charming  devotees 
of  esoteric  Buddhism,  theosophy,  and  other  vague  and 
empty  "  isms  "  that  bear  the  whiff  of  spicy  breezes  from 
the  Orient,  have  also  temporarily  donned  the  fad  and 
fashion,  being  absolutely  ignorant  of  either  the  facts  or 
fruits  of  these  ill-bred  and  unscientific  systems.  It  is 
one  thing  to  write  up  an  interesting  essay  on  the  rue 
and  euphrasies  of  pagan  systems,  but  quite  another  thing 
to  see  it  day  by  day  and  night  by  night  in  all  the 
naked  reality  of  its  gross  and  vulgar  character.  As  from 
India,  so  from  Japan,  after  the  meeting  in  Chicago  of 
"  The  Parliament  of  EeHgions,"  there  went  forth  Hindoo 
pundits,  Mohammedan  mollahs,  Buddhist  priests,  and 
Shinto  "  right  reverends,"  to  exhibit  the  polished  shells 
of  their  religious  and  superstitious  cults.  Nor  was  their 
itinerary  or  propaganda  in  vain,  when  it  satisfied  them 
to  know  they  did  woo  and  win  not  a  few  of  the  moral 
nondescripts  of  America  and  Europe  to  their  respective 
tenets.  Speaking  of  this  in  an  article  on  "  The  After- 
math of  the  Parliament,"  Dr.  William  Ashmore,  the  Nestor 
of  China  missionaries,  said  : 

"  They  have  come  back  to  the  Orient  to  flaunt  their 
garlands  in  the  faces  of  Christian  converts,  and  to  boast 
of  the  triumphs  they  achieved  at  the  expense  and 
entertainment  of  missionary  masters  of  art." 

These  pundits  and  teachers  may  have  returned  with 
kindlier  feelings  towards  the  West ;  they  may  have  been 
won  to  a  more  sympathetic  attitude  towards  Christianity  ; 
but  they  were  well  convinced  that  they  had  more  under- 


56  INDEXES  THAT  TELL 

standing  than  all  their  teachers.  It  should  not  seem 
strange,  therefore,  that  their  inherent  pride  was  in- 
tensified on  their  triumphant  return  to  Tokio,  Peking, 
Calcutta,  and  the  ancient  cities  of  Asia  Minor,  since 
they  were  invested  with  a  sense  of  confidence  and  a 
halo  of  glory  that  was  never  theirs  in  their  own 
lands. 

Like  three  elaborate  candlesticks,  the  religions  of 
China  (Confucianism,  Buddhism,  and  Taoism)  stand  like 
cold  chandeliers  in  high  places  in  massive  temples ;  but 
they  have  not  substance,  light,  or  heat,  and  they 
represent  the  cold  and  formal  mythology  which  neither 
educates  nor  saves.  Hannibal  could  not  save  Carthage ; 
Marcus  Antonius  could  not  save  the  Eoman  Empire ; 
nor  could  Demosthenes  save  cultured  Greece.  Matthew 
Arnold  said :  "  Brilliant  Greece  perished  for  lack  of 
attention  to  conduct,  steadiness,  and  character."  China, 
also,  became  first  stationary,  then  isolated,  and  finally 
decadent,  along  the  same  declining  lines.  One  is 
reminded  of  that  beautiful  sermon  of  the  late  Phillips 
Brooks,  on  "  The  Candle  of  the  Lord,"  in  which,  referring 
to  these  non-Christian  systems,  he  says : 

Lamps  without  OiL — "  They  are  unlighted  candles ; 
they  are  the  spirit  of  man  elaborated,  cultivated,  finished, 
to  its  very  best,  but  lacking  the  last  touch  of  God. 
As  dark  as  a  row  of  silver  lamps,  all  chased  and 
wrought  with  wondrous  skill,  all  filled  with  rarest  oil, 
but  all  untouched  with  fire ;  so  dark  in  this  world 
is  a  long  row  of  cultivated  men,  set  up  along  the 
corridor  of  some  age  of  history,  around  the  halls  of 
some  wise  university,  or  in  the  pulpits  of  some  stately 
church,  to  whom  there  has  come  no  fire  of  devotion  ; 
who    stand    in    awe   and    reverence    before    no   wisdom 


'•FOUND  WANTING"  57 

greater  than  their  own  ;  who  are  proud  and  selfish,  and 
who  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  obey." 

There  is,  indeed,  a  place  for  these  broken  systems  that 
have  represented  the  ciiltus,  the  external  worship,  the 
ceremonial  usages,  the  form  or  body  in  which  the  idea 
was  articulated ;  and  that  is  in  a  record  on  a  cold  stone 
slab,  upon  a  shelf,  or  in  a  glass  case  in  some  international 
museum. 

The  literature  of  Asia  is  full  of  the  praises  of  heathen 
sages  who  have  written  upon  the  nature  of  virtue  and 
the  obligations  to  practise  it,  while  their  own  vices 
showed  that  they  had  little  knowledge  of  morals,  and 
were,  consequently,  very  ineffectual  teachers  of  them 
to  others.  From  the  time  of  the  foundation  of  the 
Babylonian  Empu'e,  all  Asia  seems  to  have  lost  the 
truth.  More  especially  from  the  time  in  which  God 
called  Abraham  out  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  do  the 
Gentiles  seem  to  have  been  given  over  to  a  reprobate 
mind.  From  one  false  system  to  another  they  rushed 
into  demoralising  observances  and  the  grossest  idolatries, 
until  they  did  not  like  to  retain  God  in  their  knowledge. 
Phoenicia,  Egypt,  Thrace,  and  other  States  might  transmit 
their  absurd  mythologies  to  Greece  and  Eome,  and  then 
exchange  with  them  some  of  their  intellectual  refine- 
ment ;  but  gross  darkness  was  covering  the  earth,  and 
"  they  groped  in  gloom  in  the  noonday  as  in  the  night." 

Across  the  night  of  paganism,  philosophy  has  flitted 
on,  like  the  common  lantern-fly  of  the  tropics,  a  light 
unto  itself,  but  alas !  no  more  than  an  ornament  of  the 
surrounding  darkness.  Their  poets,  like  the  bards  of  the 
East  to-day,  sang  of  manes,  ghosts,  streams  that  emptied 
into  "  Elysian  fields,"  and  seats  of  deities ;  but  most  of 
these,  with  their  dreams  of  nectar  quaffed  by  the  gods, 

H.U.S  H 


58  INDEXES  THAT  TELL 

were  fables  invented  for  the  vulgar,  in  which  the  very 
authors  themselves  had  the  least  belief. 

What  might  have  happened  had  the  Far  East,  like 
Judea,  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  coming  day,  as  its  first 
light  kissed  the  hilltops  of  Judea,  and  rose  brighter 
until  its  beams  emerged  "  to  give  light  to  them  that  sat 
in  darkness  and  dwelt  in  the  shadow  of  death,"  we  may 
not  know. 

Like  meteors  flaming  through  the  night  skies,  these 
non-Christian  faiths  have  shone  "  for  a  season,"  but  have 
left  the  darkness  deeper,  blacker,  and  more  intense  than 
ever.  There  have  been,  however,  in  the  mission  and 
purpose  of  these  partial,  ethnic,  and  temporary  creeds, 
some  forces  in,  through,  and  by  which  we  are  enabled  to 
see,  not  only  the  resultant  conditions,  but  their  own  sad 
confessions  of  need. 


IV 

LIGHTS  OF  PAGAN  CREATION 


59 


"  As  certain  also  of  your  own  poets  have  said,  .  .  .  ." — St.  Paul 
at  the  Athenian  Areopagus. 

"  A  national  religion,  said  Mozoomdar,  may  be  a  very  fine  thing  ; 
but  a  rational  religion  is  grander.  To  which  noble  words  I  would 
add  :  Any  religion  which  boasts  of  being  national  proclaims  to  the 
world  the  fact  that  it  is  not  the  universal  religion.  As  well  may 
men  ask  for  a  national  geography  or  a  national  astronomy  as  for  a 
national  religion."— Edward  P.  Rice,  B.A.,  Bangalore,  India. 


IV 

LIGHTS  OF  PAGAN  CREATION 

The  dying  words  of  Goethe,  "  Light,  more  light ! "  ex- 
press the  simple  articulation  of  a  universal  desire. 
Indeed,  universal  history  is  a  long,  keen,  and  pathetic 
struggle  "  through  night  to  light " ;  and  in  all  climes  and 
among  all  races  the  axiomatic  truth  of  "  via  crucis,  via 
lucis,"  has  canonised  it  into  a  common  proverb.  It  is  as 
natural  for  man  to  seek  the  truth  as  it  is  for  the  plant 
to  rise  and  seek  the  light.  The  clever  and  philosophic 
Hindoo,  Japanese,  or  Chinese  is  a  brother  to  the  rude, 
untutored  savages  of  "  the  dark  continent "  in  his  in- 
tuitive conception  that  knowledge  is  light  and  ignorance 
is  darkness. 

Eastern  literature  is  a  thesaurus  of  unique  mysteries. 
Its  gems  and  surprises  pay  for  research.  Everywhere  it 
emphasises  the  fact  that  virtue  reaches  the  summits 
of  life,  and  that  crime  easily  gravitates  to  the  depths 
of  hell.  But  it  fails  just  where  man  reaches  out  after 
eternal  realities  and  spiritual  certainties.  Their  "  dark 
sayings  "  and  "  shadows  "  and  "  predictions  "  are  fascin- 
ating but  unscientific.  No  great  living  apologists  value 
them.     They    remind    one    in    their   predictions,  ritual, 

6i 


62  LIGHTS  OF  PAGAN  CREATION 

and  ceremonies,  of  the  cold,  dead  aiirora-borealis  in  its 
fitful  mirage  playing  its  strange  antics  in  a  lifeless 
zone. 

Like  the  Samaritans,  the  Chinese,  Hindoos,  Japanese, 
and  other  peoples  of  the  Far  East,  have  had  many  loose 
and  fragmentary  predictions  of  a  messenger  of  the  Divine 
covenant  coming  suddenly  to  His  temple.  Most  students, 
however,  agree  that  these  must  be  taken  "  cum  grano 
salts." 

In  "  this  mountain,"  in  their  "  holy  fields,"  their 
respective  Jerusalems,  Meccas,  and  other  pilgrim  resorts, 
there  are  shrines  and  temples  claiming  the  long-expected 
advent.  In  laughing  lakes,  in  musical  woodland,  by 
fairy  glen,  by  sea-washed  shores,  in  sylvan  solitudes,  and 
in  busy  marts,  man  feels  a  conscious  divinity.  There — 
he  feels  a  tide  of  emotion  towards  a  realm  of  life  beyond 
his  sight,  and  far  beyond  his  touch ;  a  distant  voice  of 
prophecy  and  promise,  a  yet  unknown  Divine  revelation 
of  supreme  and  creative  intelligence — at  tlie  analysis  and 
nature  of  which,  iu  his  pitiful  limitations  and  bleared 
vision,  he  capitulates,  and  for  the  sake  of  convenience  and 
the  "  next-best,"  he  names  after  stars,  omens,  dreams, 
haruspices,  sybils,  satyrs  among  the  woods,  dii  maj'ores, 
naiads,  waters,  gentle  nymphs  of  the  forest,  rocks, 
mountains,  aerial  divinities,  and  even  vicious  and 
monstrous  iniquities,  which  he  surmises  surround  him  in 
vast  numbers.^  That  phosphorescent  light  we  so  often 
observe  in  travels  in  the  East,  represents  to  him  beckon- 
ing beacons,  while  he  fancies  he  hears  the  charming 
music  of  the  sirens  as  they  woo  to  celestial  shores. 
Even  the  purer  and  higher  conceptions  of   the  Divine 

^  Canon  of  Shun;   SMh  King,  iv.  8  ;    Yueh  Li.  g,  iv.  ii.  2  ;   Li-Tcyi ; 
Announcement  of  Thang  ;  Doctrine  of  the  Mean,  xxii. 


64 


Three  Veteran  Missionaries  to  China 

On  the  reader's  left  is  the  late  Dr.  Hudson  Taylor,  who 
arrived  in  China  in  1854  ;  standing  in  the  centre  is  Dr.  Griffith 
John,  who  reached  China  in  1855,  while  on  the  reader's  right  is 
Dr.  W.  A.  P.  Martin,  who  commenced  work  in  China  as  early 
as  1850.  The  above  picture  was  presented  to  the  author  by 
Dr.  Griffith  John.  It  was  taken  just  a  week  before  Dr.  Hudson 
Taylor  "entered  into  life."  These  three  giants  who  have 
fought  heathenism  represent  156  years  of  service  for  China. 


Imperial  Tablet  commending  Suicide  of 
Virtuous  Widows 

On  the  public  highways  and  in  conspicuous  places  in  main 
streets  these  memorial  arches  may  be  seen.  By  Imperial 
decree  and  by  family  subscriptions  they  are  raised.  In  Ch'u 
Cheo  city,  Anhwei  province,  there  is  an  unusually  elaborate 
arch  built  by  Imperial  sanction  to  the  memory  of  the  "virtuous 
and  brave  widow "  of  Elder  Fei,  who  committed  suicide  by 
swallowing  opium  the  same  evening  of  her  husband's  death, 
in  order  to  serve  him  in  the  next  world. 


BIRTH-HOURS  OF  HISTORY  65 

nauUi'e  are  vague,  and  more  often  than  otherwise 
bihngiial  in  some  of  the  kind  of  words  they  use ; 
"  but  not  one  of  them  locks  up  its  adherents  in  the 
dungeons  of  despair,  and  then  flings  the  key  away." 
The  sun  shines  through  dense  clouds,  but  it  shines 
nevertheless  ;  it  is  the  promise  of  day,  even  though  it 
be  so  with  a  partial  eclipse  between  the  eye  and  the 
luminary. 

Crisis-Hours  in  History. — It  was  a  remarkable  period 
when,  in  the  sixth  century  before  Christ,  there  arose  the 
great  personalities  who  represented  the  three  prevailing 
religions  of  China.  It  seemed  to  be  a  crisis-hour  in 
history.  In  the  strategic  time,  and  in  the  strategic 
place,  great  men  of  destiny  arose  and  left  their  impress 
on  the  age.  In  Greece,  Pythagoras,  the  father  of  ancient 
philosophy,  ruled  men's  thoughts.  In  China  arose  Con- 
fucius to  set  in  order  the  state  religion.  In  India  arose 
Sakyamuni  Gautama  Buddha,  to  reform  Brahminism. 
In  Judea  was  being  witnessed  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  and  the  great  reverses  to  the  religion  of 
Jehovah.  It  was  in  this  sixth  century  also  that  the 
times  were  illuminated  by  the  lives  and  works  of 
Jeremiah,  Zoroaster,  Ezekiel,  and  Confucius,  by  the  work 
of  Cyrus,  and  by  the  light  of  the  prophets  of  the  exile. 
That  unique  era  indicated  a  great  preparatory  scheme  in 
the  religious  history  of  the  race.  Confucianism  gave  a 
high  code  of  ethics  with  no  spirit  of  power  to  lend  it 
action.  Buddhism  created  a  longing  for  a  saviour,  but 
threw  no  searchlight  on  the  gloom.  Taoism  sought 
to  find  the  elixir  vitae,  but  found  a  quintessence  of 
doubt. 

A  Trinity  of  Faiths. — The  following  table  sets  forth 
the   data  and  peculiar  value    of    the   three  contempor- 

H.U.S.  I 


66 


LIGHTS  OF  PAGAN  CREATION 


aneous  religions  of  the  Empire,  and  shows  at  a  glance 
their  historic  setting  and  character  : — 


Confucianism. 

Buddhism. 

Taoism. 

Confucius,  born    in 
China,     B.C.     551, 
died  B.C.  478. 

Emblem      of      State 
Church, 
Dragon. 

Has  had  2,400  years 
of  propagation. 

Has  influenced  75 
generations  of  men 
now  in  the  tomb. 

Represents 

Atheism. 

Buddha,      born     in 
India,      B.C.      620, 
died  B.C.  543. 

Emblem  of  worship, 

Image  of  Buddha. 

Has  had  2,500  years 
of  propagation. 

Has  inlluenced  80 
generations  of  men 
now  in  the  tomb. 

Represents 

Idolatry. 

Laotsz,       born       in 
China,     B.C.     604, 
disappeared        B.C. 
524. 

Emblem  of  worship. 
Demon. 

Has  had  2,500  years 
of  propagation. 

Has  influenced  80 
generations  of  men 
now  in  the  tomb. 

Represents 

Superstition. 

These  systems  are  not  rivals.  One  temple  may 
represent  all  three  faiths.  Although  Confucianism  is 
the  religion  of  the  literati,  there  is  no  one  state  religion 
universally  and  signally  accepted  by  itself  as  to  dignify 
its  being  denominated  the  state  religion.  The  Chinese 
invest  shares  in  all  three  faiths,  practising  their  foolish 
rites,  their  severe  austerities,  and  their  pompous  ritual, 
and  at  the  same  time  may  be  considered  orthodox  ! 
There  is  to  their  minds  no  sense  of  incongruity  in  this. 
Though  none  of  these  systems  bears  the  autograph  of 
truth  or  reason,  the  average  student  accepts  them  as 
the  "  Will  of  Heaven,"  and  yields  to  a  mere  slavish 
punctiliousness  in  the  observance  of  their  nice  and  exact 
forms  and  ceremonies.  The  fact  that  all  these  three 
systems  are  tolerated,  financed,  and  supported  by  the 
Imperial  Government,  gives  great  weight  to  their  claims, 
and  makes   almost  imperative  the  rights  of  the  priests 


LIGHTS  THAT  HAVE  FAILED  67 

to  levy  taxes  on  the  masses  for  their  temples,  priest- 
hood, and  pagan  practices. 

To  the  refined  ideas  of  the  Christian  student,  the 
trinity  of  faiths  as  tabulated  above  represents  both  an 
unhistoric  and  unscientific  synthesis  of  life  and  death, 
commencing  in  guesses  and  ending  in  dream  and  poetry. 
They  are  the  lights  that  have  failed.  Among  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  the  thinking  and  awakening  masses,  they  are 
now  regarded  as  "  airy  speculations,"  and  like  the  baseless 
fabric  of  a  vision  "  live  no  longer  in  the  faith  of  reason." 
But  while  this  is  true,  it  is  also  a  fact  that  millions  still 
cling  with  rigid  tenacity  to  "the  traditions  of  the  fathers"; 
and  millions  more  have  lost  their  way  in  the  quagmires 
of  paganism,  and  in  the  meshes  of  types,  symbols, 
shadows,  pilgrimages,  days,  sacrifices ;  and,  wooed  to 
sleep  with  the  songs  of  choirs  invisible,  and  the  fumes  of 
incense,  they  have  been  ensnared  and  allured  to  the 
fascinations  of  mental  and  moral  inertia.  This  is  the 
spell  and  charm  of  heathenism,  and  it  is  the  secret  origin 
of  all  such  aberrations  as  we  know  the  heathen  mind  to 
be  easily  capable  of  developing. 

Seekers  after  God. — In  Pressensu's  Aricient  World 
and  Christianity^  its  erudite  author  describes  in  fascinat- 
ing style  the  expectant  attitude  of  the  world  at  the 
coming  of  Christ.  In  respect  to  Virgil's  prophecies  in 
the  fourth  Eclogue,  describing  the  golden  age,  the  learned 
author  writes :  "  It  was  especially  in  this  aspect  that 
Virgil  was  the  inspired  voice  of  his  generation."  The 
feast  of  Virgil  was  kept  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  he  was 
regarded  as  one  of  the  prophets  of  Christ.  Early  legend 
has  it  that  St.  Paul  visited  his  tomb  in  Naples,  and 
lamented  over  it,  crying :  "  0  greatest  of  poets,  what  had 
I  not  made  of  thee,  had  I  but  met  thee  in  thy  lifetime  1 " 


68  LIGHTS  OF  PAGAN  CREATION 

Not  only  among  the  star-worshippers  of  the  Chaldean 
plains,  but  also  among  all  men  seeking  after  the  way  of 
life,  the  belief  was  shared  that  the  incarnation  among 
men  of  a  Divine  Saviour  was  to  be  the  last  and  final 
word  from  heaven  to  men.  This  view  was  shared  by 
Tacitus,  Suetonius,^  and  Josephus ;  while  Virgil  said  the 
messenger  would  be  a  little  child  from  heaven,  who 
would,  in  time,  take  away  sin,  restore  the  golden  age,  and 
usher  in  the  millennial  era. 

"The  Desired  of  all  Nations  shall  come"  (Hag. 
ii.  7). — Whether  these  figures  in  the  constellations,  and 
the  traditions  with  which  the  emblems  are  identified, 
are  admitted  into  the  cumulative  evidence  of  the  East — 
kindling  and  keeping  alive  the  expectation  of  a  Coming 
One — or  whether  we  assign  them  a  place  in  the  fanciful 
archives  that  deal  with  the  broken  fragments  of  prophetic 
truth,  no  one  can  dispute  the  serious  fact  that  they  are  the 
more  mysterious  to  us  because  we  do  not  understand  them. 

Professor  W.  M.  Eamsay,  D.C.L.,  writes  -.^  "The  Hebrews 
always  recognised  that  the  Divine  purpose  reserved  for 
them  a  future  better  than  the  past,  and  they  alone 
associated  the  coming  of  the  better  age  with  the  birth  of 
a  child.  We  must,  I  think,  look  to  the  East  and  to  the 
Hebrew  poetry  for  the  germ  from  which  Virgil's  poem 
developed,  though  in  the  process  of  development,  nourish- 
ment from  many  other  sides,  determined  its  growth  and 
affected  its  character." 

From  the  mass  of  such  evidence  which  is  uncovered 
in  all  the  sacred  literatures  of  the  East,  one  leans  to  the 
thought  while    delving  into  much  of    this  ancient   and 

^  Suetonius,  Fesp.  c.  4  ;  Tacitus,  Aim.  v.  13. 

^  Yide  Expositor,  vol.  iii.  pp.  554  ff.,  "The  Diviue  Child  and  Virgil," 
Prof.  W.  M.  Ramsay,  D.C.L.,  LL.D.,  D.D. 


FRAGMENTS  OF  PROPHECY 


69 


universal  theology,  that  "  in  the  absence  of  a  printed 
literature  it  was  a  magnificent  idea  to  inscribe  these 
doctrines  upon  the  heavens  themselves,  and  link  them 
with  the  discoveries  of  astronomic  science,  so  that  the 
heavens  might  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and  that  these 
precious  promises  and  truths  might  be  handed  from 
father  to  son,  from  sage  to  sage,  and  from  age  to  age, 
with  the  deepest  reverence  and  awe." 

In  the  planisphere  in  the  Temple  of  Dendera  in  Egypt, 
going  back  at  least  2000  B.C.,  is  the 
remarkable  figure  of  a  woman  and  a 
child.  In  the  accompanying  illustra- 
tion she  is  seen  to  be  clothed  with  the 
sun,  and  has  the  moon  at  her  feet. 
The  Virgin  and  the  Babe  are  there.  In 
her  hand  she  holds  a  sheaf  of  corn, 
symbolic  of  the  promised  Seed  which  was 
to  reach  innumerable  progeny  and  bruise 
the  serpent  (Gen.  iii.  15). 

Sir  W.  Herschel  bears  testimony  that 

the  heavens  are  scribbled   all  over  with 

signs  of  dragons  which  the  Messiah  was 

to  overcome.     Shakespeare  seems  to  have 

From  the  Plani-  grasped  the    prophetic    meaning    of    the 

sphere  at  Den-  constellation  picture  above  described.     In 

dera  in  Egypt  his   Titus  Anclronkus,  he    speaks   of   an 

^■'"'  arrow    being  shot   up  to    heaven  to  the 

"  Good  boy  in  Virgo's  lap." 

It  is  a  most  impressive  fact  that  there  are  thousands 

of  the  best  educated  men  in  the  Far  East  to-day  who 

are  agitated  at  the  passing  of  the  old  faiths,  and  who 

are  alert  to  the  finger  tips  in  search  of  the  true  way. 

A  Point  d'appui. — A  certain  dissensus  of  opinion  has 


70  LIGHTS  OF  PAGAN  CREATION 

declared  that  most  of  these  germinal  religious  ideas  are 
useless,  but  the  consensus  of  opinion  seems  to  be  that 
these  kindergarten  pictures  and  infant  blocks  in  religious 
education,  whether  in  constellation  pictures,  allegory, 
parable,  mythus  or  fable,  have  been,  and  are  an 
invaluable  assistance  to  the  more  ready  and  intelligent 
appreciation  of  that  faith  which  came  at  the  fulness  of 
time,  "  bringing  light  and  immortality  to  light  through 
the  Gospel" 

"Errors  like  straws  upon  the  surface  flow, 
He  who  would  search  for  pearls  must  dive  below," 

If  this  point  d'appui  is  related  to  bottom  strata,  then 
we  may  expect  among  a  people  of  reflective  instincts  that 
much  of  their  own  elemental  faiths,  when  divested  of 
their  rust  and  mildew,  will  show  up  not  a  little  outline 
of  spiritual  significance,  and  help  us  to  see  their  systems 
from  their  point  of  view.  In  such  a  vantage  ground  we 
should  be  placed  in  the  best  part  of  the  orchestra,  where 
we  may  listen  to  their  mysterious  harmonies,  and  dis- 
cover albeit,  that  what  we  thought  was  discord,  after  all 
proved  to  be  harmonies  misunderstootl. 

"All  the  means  of  action, 
The  shapeless  masses,  the  materials, 
Lie  everywhere  about  us  ;   what  we  need 
Is  the  celestial  tire,  to  change  the  flint 
Into  transparent  crystal,  liright  and  clear." 

Star  Signals. — There  is  in  the  Chinese  schools  a 
legend  current  to  the  effect  that  Confucius,  in  China, 
at  least  500  B.C.,  had  prognosticated  the  imminent 
advent  of  a  deliverer,  and  that  later  disciples  were  sent 
in  search  of  the  celestial  sign.  The  famous  sentence 
in  the  Classics  quoted  in  support  of  this  "unconscious 
prophecy  "  reads :   "  Among  the  peoples  of  the  Western 


IN  DIVERS  MANNERS  71 

regions,  there  is  to  appear  a  sage."  It  is  not  con- 
sidered seriously  by  most  sinologues,  though  many  of 
the  disciples  of  Confucius,  including  the  Emperor  Ming 
of  the  Han  Dynasty,  construed  it  to  mean  Buddha. 

In  the  first  book  of  Mencius,  there  is  another  striking 
passage  which  reads :  "  We  have  waited  long  for  our 
Prince  (or  Son  of  Heaven).  His  coming  will  be  our 
reviving."  It  is  a  strange  coincidence,  too,  that  the  very 
last  word  or  hieroglyphic  used  for  "  reviving  "  is  the  same 
generic  character  used  in  the  Chinese  language  to  signify 
the  name  of  Jesus — the  Eestorer,  Eeviver,  Giver  of  life, 
and  Eedeemer  of  the  race. 

Zoroaster  sees  his  Star. — The  Nestorians  present 
one  of  the  most  interesting  studies  in  the  social  and 
religious  life  of  the  Chinese.  In  638  an  Imperial 
decree  recognises  the  Xestorians.  Alopen,  the  high- 
priest  of  Ta-t'sin  (all  west  of  Euphrates  and  the  Caspian), 
had  arrived  at  Si-an  Fu  in  635,  and  translated  some  of 
the  Mi-shih-a  (Messiah)  scriptures.  They  came  to  China 
about  the  same  time  as  the  teachings  of  Zoroaster  became 
popular.  They  established  monasteries  at  the  capital. 
Their  teachings  and  synagogues  flourished  in  Shansi — 
the  seat  of  the  Tang  dynasty.  The  Nestorians  claim  that 
Zoroaster  was  a  disciple  of  Jeremiah,  and  that  it  was 
from  him  that  he  learned  about  the  Messianic  hopes. 
He  is  said  to  have  taught  the  Persians  concerning  Christ. 
He  told  his  disciples  that  "  in  the  latter  days  a  virgin 
should  conceive,  and  bear  a  child,  and  that,  as  soon  as 
the  child  was  born,  a  star  would  appear,  blazing,  even  at 
noonday,  with  undiminished  lustre." 

"  You,  my  sons,"  declared  the  venerable  seer,  "  will 
perceive  its  rising,  before  any  other  nation.  As  soon  as 
you  see  the  star,  follow  it  whithersoever  it  leads  you,  and 


72  LIGHTS  OF  PAGAN  CREATION 

adore  the  mysterious  child,  offering  your  gifts  to  him 
with  the  profoundest  humility.  He  is  the  Almighty 
Word  which  created  the  heavens."  This  remarkable 
prediction  was  made  500  B.C. 

Chinese  Emperor's  Dream. — In  the  year  a.d.  68, 
the  first  Hindoo  missionaries  arrived  at  the  capital  of 
China  on  white  horses  from  Cabul.  They  were  two 
Brahmin  priests.  They  came  at  the  invitation  of  the 
Emperor  of  China.^  They  were  received  with  Imperial 
favour  and  translated  one  of  their  Sutras  into  the 
Chinese  literary  style.  Troubled  by  a  dream  of  a 
golden  messenger  entering  the  ancient  halls,  one  of  the 
palace  viziers  (wise  men)  was  called  and  suggested  that 
this  "  must  be  Buddha,  a  divinity  in  Western  parts." 
A  special  commission  was  appointed  to  the  West  in 
search  of  the  new  religion.  They  returned  after  long 
pilgrimages.  They  went  only  as  far  as  India,  and 
secured  a  tooth  of  S'akyamuni  Gautama  (original  name 
Siddhartha). 

It  was  only  thirteen  years  before  these  men  reached 
China  that  the  first  missionaries  of  the  Cross  sailed  the 
^gean  Sea,  and  entered  Europe,  They  were  arrested, 
whipped,  and  dismissed  by  the  magistrates  of  a  Eoman 
colony.  It  is  remarkable  that  about  this  time  Christianity 
was  achieving  its  splendid  triumphs  in  the  West.  The 
rival  faiths  did  exploits.  Buddhism  went  East  and 
covered  Asia  with  monasteries,  while  Christianity  marched 
West  and  covered  Europe  with  churches. 

"...  and  a  false  faith  lingered  still, 
As  shades  do,  though  the  morning  stars  be  out." 

^  In  A.D.  62  the  Emperor  had  a  vision.  The  special  commissioners 
were  despatched  to  India.  After  about  two  years'  absence  they  returned 
with  a  lai-ge  image  of  Buddha  and  some  forty- two  chapters  of  the  Sutras. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  DISPLACEMENT 


H.U.S.  73 


"  The  great  need  of  China  to-day  is  vital  religion.  What  the 
Chinese  need  above  all  else  is  a  heavenly  principle  that  shall  infuse 
a  new  moral  and  spiritual  life  into  their  nation,  a  mighty  power 
that  shall  transform  them  in  their  inmost  being,  a  Divine  inspira- 
tion that  shall  create  within  their  own  breasts  aspirations  after 
holiness  and  eternal  life.  In  other  words,  apart  from  Christianity,  I 
can  see  no  hope  for  China.  It  is  Christ  alone  that  can  lead  in  the 
glorious  dawn  of  the  Chinese  renaissance,  the  new  birth  of  a  mighty 
nation  to  liberty  and  righteousness,  and  ever-expanding  civilisation. 
China  will  soon  be  prepared  for  the  churches  :  will  the  churches  be 
prepared  for  China  ? " — Dr.  Griffith  John  :  52  years  in  China. 

"  If  you  will  come  and  help  us  to  mould  aright  those  precious 
materials  for  building  up  there  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  we  shall, 
please  God,  save  China  yet.  But  the  powers  of  evil  are  at  work  as 
well  as  the  powers  of  good.  If  we  fail  in  our  -part  now,  the  glowing 
metal  that  seems  all  hut  ready  for  the  touch  of  the  Divine  Artist  will 
fall  cold  and  hard  again,  and  the  Church  may  have  to  wait  through 
decades,  if  not  centuries,  of  shame  and  remorse,  for  the  return  of  the 
opportunity  of  to-day." — Rev.  J.  Campbell  Gibson,  D.D.,  Swatow. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  DISPLACEMENT 

Heathenism  must  be  defeated  by  displacement.  In  the 
study  of  natui'al  philosophy,  one  of  the  earliest  lessons 
demonstrated  is  that  a  medium  cannot  be  poured  into  a 
receptacle  so  long  as  it  is  filled.  There  must  first  be 
the  displacement  of  that  which  it  contains,  before  it 
can  contain  anything  else.  When  we  enter  the  realm  of 
the  intellectual  and  the  spiritual,  the  same  rule  applies. 
We  shall,  as  missionaries,  by  the  preaching  of  the  pure 
and  blessed  Gospel  of  salvation  through  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord,  counteract  and  supplant  heathenism  by  truth  and 
righteousness. 

Christianity  has  had  but  a  hundred  years  of  propaganda 
in  China.  Even  under  the  perfunctory  sanction  of  the 
Imperial  Government,  and  through  terrible  persecutions 
and  martyrdoms,  it  has  made  its  demonstration.  True, 
it  has  sometimes  caused  immense  collisions ;  but  even  in 
war  and  rebellion,  both  in  its  causes  and  results,  it  has 
not  belied  its  creative  and  normative  functions. 

It  has  implanted  new  social,  political,  and  religious 
ideals  among  the  youth  in  a  sane  and  careful  manner. 
It  has  imparted  a  new  life  which  is  springing  up  in  a 
thousand  forms.  It  is  at  the  back  of  the  new  and 
superior  movements  which  are  awaking  the  nations,  and 

73 


76  THE  CHRISTIAN  DISPLACEMENT 

which  will  be  of  immense  significance  in  the  future  of 
the  national  life  of  these  wonderful  East-lands. 

In  its  advocacy  of  pure  literature,  science  of  healing, 
advancement  in  mechanical  arts  and  the  conveniences  of 
life,  Christianity  is  arresting  the  attention  of  the  thinking 
men  of  the  Far  East. 

It  might  truly  be  said  of  the  Christian  press  in  China 
and  Japan,  that  within  a  quarter  of  a  century  it  has 
overturned  the  mythologies  of  paganism,  taught  a  higher 
morality,  changed  fiction  for  fact,  symbol  to  reality ;  and 
in  so  doing  has  mortified  the  pride  of  paganism,  con- 
founded its  learning,  revealed  its  absurdities,  and  ruined 
its  credit. 

It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  the  superior  character 
of  Christianity  is  both  seen  and  appreciated.  For  with 
Buddhism,  Confucianism,  Taoism,  and  other  systems,  when 
the  intellect  expands  and  the  soul-life  is  emancipated,  it 
bursts  the  mere  cerement  which  contained  it,  and  casts 
it  aside ;  while  Christianity  gathers  strength  from  all 
inflows  of  knowledge,  truth,  and  culture. 

The  only  epitaph  for  heathenism,  whether  found  in 
classic  systems  or  rude  idolatries,  is : 

Shipwrecked  upon  a  kiDgdom,  wliere  no  pity, 
No  friends,  no  hope  ;   no  kindred  weep  for  me, 
Almost  no  grave  allowed  me  ;   like  the  lily, 
That  once  was  mistress  of  the  field,  and  flourished, 
I'll  hang  my  head  and  perish. 

Christianity  has  a  tremendous  advantage  in  discovering 
to  their  minds  the  superior  value  of  an  historical  over  a 
merely  philosophical  system.  Being  a  religion  of  facts, 
and  being  consistent  and  eminently  practical,  it  must 
appeal  to  the  more  educated  of  the  masses ;  despite  the 
intellectual  pride  and  conceit  of  the  scholastic  classes, 


DISCOVERIES  77 

who  have  in  India,  as  in  China,  been  the  most  vigorous 
and  efficient  opponents  of  evangelisation. 

We  gain  our  truest  insight  into  the  situation  when 
we  see  how  bravely  and  how  sanely  Christianity  faces 
the  giant  problems  of  missionics,  and  flinches  not.  It 
works  in  the  face  of  vast  and  organised  opposition  and 
physical  and  moral  entanglements,  compared  with  which, 
the  unexplored  tracts  of  sunless  forests  which  Stanley 
discovered  in  the  Dark  Continent  might  be  likened  to 
weeds  in  the  moorlands. 

Dr.  David  Livingstone  used  to  say :  "  We  can  afford  to 
work  in  faith,  for  Omnipotence  is  pledged  to  fulfil  its 
promise." 

In  replying  to  an  address  sent  some  years  ago  by  the 
Shanghai  merchants,  Lord  Elgin  made  the  following 
trenchant  statement,  which  is  still  worthy  of  a  careful 
perusal : — 

"  When  the  barriers  which  prevent  free  access  to  the 
interior  of  China  shall  have  been  removed.  Christian 
civilisation  of  the  West  will  find  itself  face  to  face,  not 
with  barbarism,  but  with  an  ancient  and  defiant 
civilisation,  in  many  respects  effete  and  imperfect,  but 
in  others  not  without  claim  to  our  respect  and  sympathy. 
In  the  colossal  rivalry  which  will  then  ensue,  Christian 
civilisation  will  have,  with  keen  tactfulness,  to  win  its 
way  among  a  sceptical  and  ingenious  people,  by  making 
it  manifest  that  a  faith  which  reaches  to  heaven  furnishes 
better  guarantees  than  that  which  does  not  rise  above 
the  earth." 

This  is  at  one  and  the  same  time  the  secret  place  and 
the  open  door  to  the  most  effective  displacement.  But 
it  is  a  Titanic  task :  because  as  there  can  be  no  buoyancy 
without  sufficient  depth  of  water,  neither  can  there  be 


78  THE  CHRISTIAN  DISPLACEMENT 

effective  construction  without  adequate  bases  and  the 
ways  and  means  for  such  a  magnificent  achievement. 

These  pagan  systems,  with  all  their  half  -  truths, 
delusions,  and  snares,  are  yet  ancient,  established,  and 
openly  defiant ;  and  especially  is  this  so  among  the 
illiterate  masses.  The  situation  is  complex,  critical,  and 
almost  pathetic.  The  fierce  white  light  of  knowledge 
has  undermined  and  almost  dethroned  heathenism.  Asia 
has  had  two  thousand  years  to  test  heathenism ;  and  the 
verdict  is  to-day  clear,  strong,  and  unanimous,  from  the 
best  and  brainiest  youth  of  these  awakening  East-lands, 
that  "  rotten  wood  cannot  be  carved,"  and  that  heathenism 
is  an  awful  and  ignominious  anachronism. 

Tourists  "  taken  in." — In  the  light  of  these  facts,  is 
it  not  at  least  rational  and  scientific  to  conclude  that 
the  new  China  and  the  new  Japan,  and  other  redeemed 
peoples  from  among  our  common  humanity,  shall  be 
heard,  and  their  witness  accepted,  over  and  above  much 
of  that  flattering,  fawning,  and  false  eulogy  which  some 
Sybarite  tourists  on  le  grand  tour  of  the  Orient  have, 
with  glossary,  camera,  and  guide-book,  taken  in,  and  been 
"  taken  in,"  as  they  took  snap-shots  of  minarets  and 
pagodas,  temples  and  mart,  with  their  moving  humanities, 
and,  be  it  remembered,  these  pictures  taken  from  a  silk- 
lined  sedan  chair  or  from  the  cosy  deck  of  a  river 
steamer  ? 

Anyone  who  has  seen  heathenism  in  the  streets, 
homes,  highways,  temples,  among  its  priests  and 
patrons  in  the  gilded  palaces,  as  well  as  in  the  hovels, 
will  never,  unless  his  sense  of  refinement  is  a  minus 
quantity,  flatter,  fawn,  or  wink  at  its  darkness 
and  sin.  No !  In  a  deception  which  has  enthralled 
millions    of    our    common    humanity,    proved    its    dim 


8o 


Christian  Girls  in  the  "Door  of  Hope"  Home 

This  group  of  Christian  girls  is  one  of  the  best  Christian 
evidences  in  the  history  and  action  of  modern  missions.  They 
are  composed  of  kidnapped  children,  runaway  slaves,  ill-treated 
daughters-in-law,  and  destitute  women.  Reared  to  lives  of 
sin  and  shame,  some  are  sold  by  opium-eating  parents,  and 
their  salvation  is  a  miracle  of  Divine  grace.  Some  of  these 
bright  girls  are  trained  for  nurses.  Hundreds  have  been  re- 
deemed. Mrs.  G.  F.  Fitch  of  Shanghai,  China,  who  is  the 
Chairman  of  this  splendid  work,  writes:  "We  have  not 
altogether  understood  God's  delay  in  giving  us  the  land  and 
buildings  which  seem  so  necessary  for  the  greatest  usefulness 
of  the  work,  but  we  have  known  that  to  wait  for  Him  was 
better  even  than  the  fulfilment  of  our  desires." 


DEMONSTRATIONS  8i 

guesses  au  awful  failure,  its  priestcraft  a  sensual 
coterie,  its  temples  a  seraglio,  made  the  most  colossal 
lapses  from  virtue,  set  its  ouly  jewels  of  morality  in 
obscene  frames,  and  encased  the  golden  truths  of  the 
Divine  in  the  filthy  shrines  of  Bacchus,  and  Jupiter,  and 
Venus,  we  can  find  no  more  scathing  denunciation  than 
in  the  solemn  words  of  Bassanio : 

' '  In  religion 
What  damned  error,  but  some  sober  brow 
"Will  bless  it,  and  approve  it  with  a  text, 
Hiding  the  grossness  with  fair  ornament  ? " 

While  it  is  in  the  very  nature  of  Christianity  to  be 
charitable  and  catholic — especially  towards  the  rude  and 
primary  beginnings  of  a  new  life — it  will,  as  light, 
shine  on  the  darkness,  and  as  strength,  be  kind  towards 
weakness ;  but  it  will  be  true. 

Heathenism  is  and  has  been  for  two  thousand  years 
the  monstricm  liorrcndum  in  Asia.  Compromise  with  it 
would  be  treason  to  Christ.  It  cannot  stand  the  ex- 
amination of  ripe  scholarship,  or  any  comparison  with 
accurate  learning,  or  even  the  application  of  too  reverent 
a  faith.  But  in  order  to  win  its  votaries,  we  must  be 
adaptive,  synthetic,  and  s}Tnpathetic,  and  the  victory  is 
already  ours. 

That  there  is  a  field  for  investigation  here  is 
evidenced  in  the  recent  action  of  leading  universities 
in  America  and  Europe,  in  placing  in  their  curricula  the 
study  of  comparative  religious  science.  It  should  be  an 
indispensable  prerequisite  to  a  missionary  appointment, 
and  would  at  the  outset  inform  the  missionary  candidate 
that  in  the  initial  stages  of  any  evolution,  the  least,  and 
not  the  most  perfect,  results  are  usually  the  rule. 

The  Audacity  of  Christianity. — The  present  status 

H.U.S.  L 


82  THE  CHRISTIAN  DISPLACEMENT 

of  the  Christian  Church  in  the  Far  East,  its  general 
standing  with  the  native  faiths,  its  more  tolerant  attitude 
towards  racial  antagonisms,  and  its  relation  to  the  home 
churches,  total  up  into  a  sum  of  achievements,  compared 
with  which  the  early  days  of  missions  are  as  shadow  to 
substance  and  promise  to  fulfilment. 

"  Amplius  " — wider,  was  the  single  word  of  criticism 
that  Michael  Angelo  once  wrote  over  the  work  of  one 
of  his  pupils.  Was  it  not  Jesus  who  first  voiced  this 
command  "  wider "  in  that  "  upper  room "  missionary 
meeting  ? 

New  and  superior  movements  are  taking  place  in 
Asia.  The  present  crisis  is  an  epoch-marking  era.  Under 
the  new  and  aggressive  r^{)iine  of  Christian  civilisation, 
nations  and  peoples,  only  yesterday  classed  as  non- 
entities, are  now  seen  to  be  actual  and  potent  entities. 
Christianity  has  given  a  new  and  mighty  impulse  to 
Asia,  and  it  is  showing  itself  to  be  a  force  in  national, 
industrial,  and  moral  affairs. 

Staggered  at  the  audacity  of  the  Christian  pro- 
paganda, and  indignant  at  its  universal  claims,  those  who 
were  once  its  coldest  critics  and  fiercest  assailants  are 
now  won  to  admit  the  fact  and  force  of  its  Divine 
origin.  Even  among  the  most  conservative  devotees  of 
the  non-Christian  religions  are  those  who,  if  not  arrested 
and  fascinated  by  its  doctrines,  declare  its  fruits  to  be  in 
harmony  with  the  "  will  of  Heaven  "  and  the  highest 
ethical  teaching. 

The  present  attitude  of  Chinese  newspapers  towards 
Christianity  is  diametrically  opposite  to  what  it  was 
before  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  "  Boxer  "  movement.  A 
recent  leading  article  in  the  vernacular  press,  comparing 
the  religions  of  the  East  and  West,  says  :  "  These  nations 


DANGER  SIGNALS  83 

are  opuleut,  their  armies  powerful,  their  populace  well 
instructed,  and  wealth  abounds ;  and  all  this  without 
any  idea  of  dependence  upon  gods  and  ghosts.  .  .  . 
Who  can  really  know  anything  about  these  gods  and 
ghosts  ?  What  proof  is  there  in  prayer  to  them  ?  .  .  . 
Westerners  with  their  science  investigate  everything  to 
its  ultimate  causes." 

Was  it  not  China's  ablest  statesman,  H.  E.  Chang 
Chih-Tung,  who  recently  sent  out  a  circular  remonstrat- 
ing with  a  patriotic  league  known  as  "  The  Shanghai 
Parliament,"  and  ended  his  warning  with  these  words : 
"  Don't  cause  our  China  to  become  like  Juda\a  "  ? 

These  represent  but  a  fragment  of  what  is  expressed 
day  by  day  in  the  street,  court,  temple,  school,  and  tea- 
shop  alike,  concerning  the  new  life  which  is  showing 
itself  in  the  arena  of  its  fallen  systems  and  dead 
religions.  It  is  the  consensus  of  oinnion  among  the  lead- 
ing missionaries  that  at  no  previons  time  has  the  mind 
of  the  Chinese  nation,  in  its  best  representatives,  teen  so 
accessible  to  instruction  as  to  the  character,  aims,  and 
exhibits  of  Chridianity  as  at  the  present  hour. 

Aids  and  Hindrances. — Aided  by  national,  civil, 
and  moral  ministrants,  there  has  been  a  peril  lest  the 
Church  should  forget  its  high  spiritual  place  and  its 
temporal  limitations.  Lured  to  the  dignity  of  "  official 
status "  and  imperial  recognition,  the  Eomanists  have 
well-nigh  gone  to  ruin  on  the  quicksands  of  so-called 
temporal  power.  The  lesson,  warning,  and  demonstration 
is  our  endowment. 

Not  less  interesting  and  instructive  has  been  the 
flirtation  of  the  Confucian  coterie  with  the  missionaries. 
"  Come  into  an  alliance  with  us,  and  we  will  give  Jesus 
a  place    among    the    immortals,"  is  the   Oriental    offer, 


84  THE  CHRISTIAN  DISPLACEMENT 

couched  iu  the  most  chaste  and  condescending  language  ! 
From  all  over  the  land  come  the  most  inviting  calls  to 
the  missionaries  to  teach  in  the  new  schools,  control  new 
schemes,  and  push  new  industries. 

The  work  before  the  missionaries  in  China  to-day  is 
no  mere  "  excursionist  business."  We  need  and  demand 
the  strongest  and  best  equipped  men.  A  merely  pious 
man  on  pagan  battlefields  is  Hke  a  Western  yacht  in  an 
Eastern  typhoon  !  It  needs  the  fire  of  spiritual  life  and 
the  dynamic  and  moving  power  of  knowledge  to  enable 
a  man  or  woman  to  be  a  burning  as  well  as  a  shining 
light  in  these  nightlands  of  heathendom. 

It  has  been  asked,  and  not  prematurely,  "  Will  there 
be  danger  lest  the  Chinese  churches  may  develop  forms 
of  organisation  with  too  much  of  Orientalism  and  too 
little  of  New  Testament  precedent  ? "  This  is  a  very 
vital  question.  While  we  cannot  expect  the  new  con- 
verts to  apprehend  at  a  bound  all  that  is  required  of 
them  as  disciples  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  it  should  be 
written  to  their  credit  that  they  have  shown  the 
capacity  to  grow  in  grace  and  in  truth.  Under  the 
recent  baptism  in  blood  and  in  fire,  the  native  church 
did  not  come  out  of  the  cataclysm  unscathed ;  but  it  did 
emerge  purified  of  much  of  its  dross,  and  refined  and 
established  in  the  process  of  testing  and  trial. 

One  of  the  most  significant  signs  of  the  times  is  the 
fact  that  some  of  the  best  donors  in  China  to  the  service 
of  missions  are  from  among  the  merchant-princes  and 
the  once  hostile  mandarinate.  The  attitude  of  the  Im- 
perial Government  is  becoming  more  and  more  tolerant; 
and  this  by  conviction,  rather  than  by  force  of  policy. 
Again,  the  mutual  relations  of  missionary,  merchant,  and 
magistrate  are  clearer ;  and  this  affords  the  most  efficient 


THE  NATIVE  PRESS  85 

guarantee  against  commercial  antagonisms,  political 
rivalries,  and  religious  animosities. 

Spiritual  Bloodhounds. — Again,  the  native  press  is 
a  great  formative  factor.  It  is  alive  to  the  fact  that 
China  is  in  a  great  transition  stasre.  It  is  advocating 
the  sending  out  of  "  spiritual  bloodhounds "  to  seek  a 
new  religion ;  and,  moreover,  it  is  highly  favourable  to 
the  synthetic  attitude  taken  by  Japan  in  regard  to 
v^^hat  the  future  religion  of  the  State  shall  be.^  The 
Chino-Japanese  rationalistic  and  anti-dynastic  literature 
is,  unfortunately,  liberating  forces  which  it  cannot  control. 
Ideas  are  gaining  ground  among  the  millions  of  students, 
that  a  powerful  State  can  be  maintained  without  God. 
Nothing  can  so  effectively  riddle  this  false  situation 
with  shafts  of  light,  as  a  sound,  safe,  and  scientific 
Christian  literature. 

Only  a  recent  issue  of  a  native  newspaper  contained 
the  following  forcible  statement  by  one  of  the  young 
reformers.  He  said :  "  If  the  eyes  and  ears  are  open, 
reliable  information  can  enter ;  and  if  the  heart  and 
brain  are  exercised,  proficiency  will  result.  The  ears  and 
eyes  are  the  foreign  periodicals ;  the  heart  and  brain  are 
the  colleges ;  and  the  circulation  is  the  railway." 

A  Pivotal  Period. — The  great  displacement  has 
created  a  crisis -hour  in  the  purpose  and  plan  of 
missions.  The  entu-e  situation  has  chancjed.  It  is  a 
pivotal  period  in  the  history  and  evolution  of  the  Far 
East.     These  newly  awakening  nations  are  standing  at 

^  The  Shintoism  of  Japan  is  the  religion  of  sMn-tao,  or  "divine  patli " 
or  "spiritual  way."  The  name  of  the  system  Shin-to-ism  was  intro- 
duced in  the  sixth  century.  It  is  doubtless  an  expression  derived  from 
the  Book  of  Cha7iges—''  Regnvd  the  divine  path  of  Heaven,  and  the  un- 
erring sequence  of  season."    Compare  Acts  xvii.  22-31. 


86  THE  CHRISTIAN  DISPLACEMENT 

the  parting  of  the  ways.  That  flash  of  light  which 
reveals  a  life,  a  nation,  aye,  an  empire  unto  itself,  has 
turned  its  searching  rays  upon  the  nation's  social,  moral, 
political  and  commercial  life.  The  results  are  solemnis- 
ing, and  baffle  description.  In  a  word,  China,  like  the 
prodigal,  has  come  to  herself — she  is  no  longer  in  the 
dreams  of  somnolence,  or  in  the  far-off  country  of  the 
past ;  but  is  changing,  reforming,  and  regenerating  with 
a  rapidity  which  is  almost  revolutionary. 

No  longer  need  the  Church  sit  "  at  ease  in  Zion,"  or 
pray  for  open  doors  in  the  great  Mongolian  continent. 
What  it  needs  is  the  mighty  animus  that  moved  with 
dynamic  power  the  early  and  aggressive — and  because 
active,  therefore  fruitful — Church  of  apostolic  times.  At 
this  crisis-hour  we  must  act  quickly  if  we  would  win. 
Looking  back  at  the  gaunt,  craven-hearted,  defeated, 
retreating  forces  of  heathenism,  there  are  a  million  of 
the  most  intelligent  youth  in  China  ivho  are  ready  to 
embrace  a  neiv  religion — they  will  soon  trade  all  they 
have  to  secure  the  pearl  of  great  price : 

"So  careful  of  the  type  ;  but  no, 

From  scarped  clifl'  and  quarried  stone 
She  cries,  A  thousand  types  are  gone : 
I  care  for  nothing,  all  shall  go  ! " 


VI 

A  STRATEGIC  KEY 


"  And  Jesus  called  unto  Him  the  twelve  disciples,  and  gave  them 
authority  over  unclean  spirits,  to  cast  them  out,  and  to  heal  all 
manner  of  disease  and  all  manner  of  sickness." — Matt.  x.  1. 

"  No  more  practical  work,  no  work  more  productive  of  fruit  for 
civilisation  could  exist  than  that  carried  on  by  those  who  give  their 
lives  to  the  preaching  and  exhibiting  of  the  gosj^el  of  Christ." 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

"  The  hope  of  China  is  iu  the  miraculous  spread  of  Christianity." 

Sir  Robert  Hart. 


VI 

A  STRATEGIC  KEY 

That  the  missions  have  grasped  the  geuius  which  sees  in 
religion  more  than  a  mere  al-rial  salvation,  and  some- 
thing as  intensely  practical  as  Jesus  intended  it  to  be,  is 
seen  in  the  wide  scope  of  their  activities  and  the  volume 
and  variety  of  their  agencies.  They  have  laid  hold  of  the 
beatitudes,  and  made  them  articulate  in  deeds  of  love : 
not  the  least  of  which  is  in  the  sanctity  and  lialo  they 
shed  around  child-life,  and  in  their  absolute  regeneration 
of  the  home. 

In  the  manner  and  form  of  its  adaptation  to  circum- 
stances, the  programme  of  modern  missions  shows  a 
remarkable  versatility.  Every  combination  of  educa- 
tional, industrial,  and  spiritual  life  is  introduced  into  the 
arena.  Schools,  churches,  hospitals,  orphanages,  and 
industrial  institutions  of  every  kind,  aid  the  best  inter- 
pretation of  its  spirit,  life,  and  purposes. 

Medical  knowledge  and  skill  is  proving  to  be  a 
mighty  factor.  Its  influence  in  opening  doors  in  pagan 
lands  is  as  marked  as  was  the  exercise  of  miraculous 
gifts  in  the  days  of  the  Apostles.  It  also  shields  the 
health  of  the  growing  missionary  force.  In  the  methods 
and  results  of  its  advocated  studies  in  natural  science 
is  found  an  effective  agency  in  undermining  the  whole 

H.U.S.  Sg  M 


go  A  STRATEGIC  KEY 

superstructure  of  pagan  ignorance.  All  these  are  potent 
forces,  which  to-day  are  influencing  and  winning  the 
millions  of  the  Far  East  to  the  realities  and  beneficent 
blessings  of  a  new  life. 

Love  makes  the  Sweetest  Discoveries. — The  key 
that  unlocks  the  door  of  heathenism  is  very  often  in 
the  hands  of  the  missionary  physician.  H.  M.  Stanley 
said  that  "  the  greatest  discoveries  made  in  darkest 
Africa  were  the  roads  to  the  hearts  and  confidence  of 
the  people."  In  the  realm  of  medical  science  there  is  a 
magnificent  field  open  to  the  consecrated  and  cultured 
physician.  For  it  is  true  in  heathen,  as  in  Christian 
lands,  that  love  makes  the  sweetest  discoveries. 

The  history  and  action  of  modern  missionary  enter- 
prise give  the  palm  to  medical  missions.  In  Africa,  did 
not  David  Livingstone  win  his  way  with  his  medicine 
chest  and  a  few  surgical  instruments  ?  At  the  point 
of  the  lancet,  Peter  Parker  opened  the  barred  doors 
of  China  to  commerce  and  to  missions.  Among  the 
superstitious  Koreans,  and  by  his  tactful  skill  in  saving 
the  life  of  one  of  the  princes  in  the  royal  palace,  after 
all  the  wise  men  and  native  doctors  had  tried  in  vain  to 
stanch  the  flow  of  blood  with  sealing  wax,  the  famous 
Dr.  Allen  opened  the  walled  cities  of  the  Hermit 
Kingdom.  Dr.  Elmslie  won  his  way  and  the  way  for 
Christianity  in  Kashmir  in  a  few  months,  when  Evangelical 
missionaries  had  tried  to  effect  an  entrance  for  years. 
The  same  is  true  of  Dr.  Carr's  medical  work  in  Persia ; 
and  in  many  other  countries,  where  other  plans  had 
proved  unsuccessful,  the  simple  aid  of  pulling  a  tooth, 
the  lancing  of  an  abscess,  the  administering  of  a  dose 
of  quinine,  aloes,  or  even  the  application  of  an  eye- 
wash   or  the   use  of  sulphur   ointment,  has   been  "  the 


MEDICAL  MISSIONS  91 

key  to  hearts "  which  has  opened  regions  hitherto 
inaccessible. 

The  late  Dr.  Sydney  E.  Hodge,  wrote : 

"  Christianity  never  ignored  any  part  of  man's  nature. 
From  the  first  it  was  a  gospel  to  the  whole  man,  body 
and  spirit.  It  is  in  the  very  nature  of  Christianity,  and 
is  the  very  essence  of  its  message.  The  medical  mission- 
ary preaches  in  deeds  that  love  of  God  of  which  the 
heathen  are  constantly  hearing.  As  our  blessed  Lord  made 
us  understand  God  by  coming  amongst  us,  so  the  medical 
missionary  tries  to  make  men  understand  Jesus  Christ 
by  living  a  Hfe  of  self-sacrifice  amongst  them ;  by  deeds 
of  love  they  can  understand ;  by  sympathising  with  pain 
and  suflering ;  and  by  showing  how  his  power  to  heal 
the  body,  coming  from  Him  '  from  whom  all  skill  and 
science  flow,'  is  a  type  of  that  spiritual  power  which 
can  heal  the  sm-sick  soul." 

Dr.  W.  E.  ]\Iacklin,  whose  fame  and  name,  for  his 
magnificent  medical  service,  are  all  over  Central  China, 
spends  days  and  nights,  after  great  operations  and  nerve- 
exacting  toils  in  his  large  hospital  in  Nanking,  in  going 
about  doing  good  among  the  pariahs  and  the  castaways. 
"With  the  larger  sums  of  money  which  he  calls  on  the  rich 
to  pay  for  their  treatment,  he  is  enabled  to  save  many  a 
Lazarus  at  the  expense  of  Dives.  He  is  known  as  "  the 
beloved  physician  " ;  and  by  his  love  and  service  seems  to 
be  just  as  immune  from  pestilential  disease  as  he  is  from 
attack  by  brigands  in  any  part  of  the  country. 

Only  Christian  Nations  Normal. — Only  the  nations 
that  enjoy  Christian  civilisation  have  any  normal  ideas 
of  medical  science.  The  story  of  native  doctors  and 
their  fearful  and  wonderful  practices  is  an  original  chapter 
by  itself.     When  it  is  considered  that  superstition  makes 


92  A  STRATEGIC  KEY 

a  Chinese  eat  the  prescription,  after  it  has  been  burned  to 
ashes,  so  that  he  may  get  the  very  essence  of  it  into  him, 
it  is  easily  seen  that  heathenism  has  its  absurdities  as 
well  as  its  pitiful  side.  The  above  may  be  hard  on  the 
drug-store,  but  in  China  it  is  safe  to  say  it  is  easier  on 
the  stomach. 

With  the  native  apothecary,  tiger's  bones,  three  months 
after  corruption,  are  as  precious  as  a  box  of  spikenard. 
Scorpions,  wasps,  centipedes,  lizards,  bear's  gall,  chamois 
horn,  honeycomb,  duck's  offal,  pig's  eye-balls,  and  name- 
less and  atrocious  mixtures,  are  used,  which  you  would 
not  want  to  see  even  in  your  dreams. 

One  of  the  most  curious  customs  we  ever  heard  of 
was  that  in  some  places  the  physician  was  paid  only 
during  such  time  as  the  patients  were  well.  Should 
sickness  occur,  the  pay  was  stopped  !  Drastic  but 
suseestive.  Into  a  mission  station  in  Ch'u  Cheo, 
Anhw^ei  province,  a  man  once  brought  into  the  clinic 
the  partially  decomposed  body  of  a  still-born  babe,  and 
offered  in  all  good  faith  to  sell  it  for  medicinal  purposes ! 

Physiology,  anatomy,  chemistry,  surgery,  and  obstetrical 
practice  are  all  unknown.  In  the  hour  of  nature's  trial 
the  condition  of  the  patient  is  one  of  dread  and  fear. 
Acupuncture  may  be  performed  as  a  nerve  stimulant. 
The  presence  of  one  of  their  ignorant  midwives  is  even 
worse  than  being  left  alone.  A  newborn  babe  may  not 
receive  its  first  bathing  before  it  is  two  years  old.  A 
sick  person  is  never  bathed.  There  are  no  laws  requiring 
qualifications  for  medicine  or  surgery  practice.  The  seat 
of  the  breath,  as  of  the  powers  of  learning,  is  located 
in  the  bowels.  Health  and  preservation  depend  on  the 
just  proportion  of  the  five  elements  of  fire,  earth,  wood, 
metal,  and  water,  while  these  are  controlled  by  evil  demons. 


A  HEATHEN  CLINIC  93 

Prescriptions.  —  There  is  a  valuable  prescription 
issued  by  an  Imperial  physician  named  Mo  Beh-Toz,  and 
is  considered  infallible  for  a  troublesome  tooth,  i.e.  pro- 
vided the  tooth  is  not  a  false  one.  "  Cook  well  the 
bones  of  a  rat,  pulverise,  and  apply  to  the  tooth.  If 
it  is  foreordained  that  the  tooth  will  come  out,  this  will 
bring  it ;  if  not,  it  will  become  more  firmly  fixed  than 
ever." 

Another  tooth  remedy,  popular  with  the  native  quacks 
and  drug-stores,  is  this :  "  liemove  the  entrails  of  a  fish, 
fill  the  abdominal  cavity  with  arsenic  acid,  hang  in  a 
cool  place,  wait  for  the  fins  to  turn  white,  scrape  the 
fins  and  small  white  excrescences  dry,  pulverise,  mix  with 
some  aromatic  powder,  make  a  paste,  and  apply  to  the 
tooth.     If  it  is  ordained,"  etc.  etc. 

The  following  is  an  explanation  of  the  cause  and  a 
remedial  agency  for  malarial  fever :  "  During  the  sleep 
of  exhaustion  which  follows  the  chill,  let  the  parent  or 
near  relative  slip  up  quietly  to  an  unlocked  box,  or  door, 
and  suddenly  lock  it ;  thus  the  evil  spirit  is  locked 
within,  and  the  patient  is  saved." 

It  is  amazing  to  think  of  the  credulity  of  a  people  as 
practical  and  as  economical  as  the  Chinese,  and  one 
marvels  how  easily  they  are  duped  by  the  "  medicine 
men,"  who  are  mostly  ignoramuses  of  a  very  superstitious 
and  yet  wily  order.  "Writing  of  these  men.  Dr.  Arthur 
Smith,  in  his  Bex  Christus,  says :  "  Chinese  medical 
science  is  little  better  than  a  parody  on  what  it  professes. 
Surgery  is  practically  unknown.  Chinese  medicines  are 
nauseous,  expensive,  and  for  the  most  part  inert.  Super- 
stition vitiates  every  kind  of  treatment.  Nursing  is  a 
lost  art  that  has  never  been  discovered.  Foods  for  the 
sick  are  everything  which  they  should  not  be,  and  dieting 


94  A  STRATEGIC  KEY 

is  both  inconceivable  and  impossible.  Antiseptics  are  as 
unknown  as  the  X-rays,  and  in  tlie  absence  of  sanitation, 
ventilation,  proper  clothing,  isolation,  and  general  common- 
sense,  nothing  but  a  strong  constitution  and  the  mercy 
of  God  prevent  all  patients  from  dying  daily  of  uncon- 
scious but  age-long  violation  of  all  the  laws  of  nature. 
One's  faith  in  the  germ  theory  of  disease  is  much  shaken 
by  the  unassailable  fact  that  the  Chinese  race  still 
survives." 

The  chief  surgical  instrument  of  the  Chinese  physician 
is  a  long  needle,  which,  sometimes  heated,  sometimes 
cold  and  infected,  he  thrusts  into  various  parts  of  the 
body  where  the  evil  spirit  causing  the  disease  is  supposed 
to  secrete  itself.  Into  liver  or  neck,  knee  or  elbow 
joint,  it  is  thrust,  setting  up  irritations  or  abscesses,  or 
rendering  the  part  for  ever  stiff.  A  sick  person  may 
have  prescribed  a  piece  of  human  flesh,  cut  off  from  the 
body  of  a  slave-girl  or  other  person.  A  tilial  child  may 
willingly  donate  to  a  sick  parent  this  piece  of  flesh 
either  to  be  eaten  or  plastered  on  to  the  diseased  part. 
Friends  and  neighbours  with  all  the  hum-drum  of  beating 
gongs  and  incantations  will  gather  around  a  sick  babe, 
and  by  screaming  seek  to  drive  away  the  evil  demons 
thought  to  be  causing  its  convulsions.  The  babies  of  the 
poor  are  strapped  to  the  backs  of  their  older  sisters,  and 
the  little  eyes  face  the  sun  all  through  the  glare  of  the 
day.  Dust,  dirty  washcloths,  and  the  presence  of  specific 
diseases,  do  the  rest  to  rob  many  a  child  of  sight  almost 
before  it  begins  to  see. 

To  save  washing  and  watching  the  child,  its  clothes 
are  so  made  that  it  can  care  for  itself.  The  seeds  of 
social  impurity  are  thus  sown  at  a  startlingly  early  period. 
Parents  do  not  restrain  their  talk  before  the  child,  and 


96 


Blindfolded  Idols 

These  strangely  blindfolded  idols  may  be  seen  in  the 
Buddhist  temples.  Sometimes  the  idols  are  blindfolded  while 
heathenism  holds  high  carnival  in  its  nameless  and  shameless 
orgies.  In  the  Chinese  homes  may  often  be  seen  the  idols 
blindfolded  for  an  hour  or  so  by  the  inmates  while  gambling 
or  some  other  more  vicious  sin  is  indulged  in. 


THE  PITY  OF  IT  97 

the  child  language  becomes  innocently  vile.  Cuprum  is 
of  value  in  cholera,  but  they  cause  the  patient  to  chew 
down  the  copper  cash,  and  believe  in  its  efficacy ! 

Dr.  ElUott  I.  Osgood  of  Ch'u  Cheo,  Auhwei,  writes  : 
Normal  Conditions  of  Paganism. — "  The  poor  have 
no  salvation  from  the  ravages  of  disease  and  exposure. 
A  little  orphan  boy  was  found  on  a  cold  winter's  morning 
with  the  toes  of  one  foot  frozen  off,  leaving  a  great 
ugly  ulcer.  His  hair  was  matted,  and  his  head  covered 
with  scabs  and  sores ;  his  body  was  covered  with  itch, 
and  his  clothes  filled  with  vermin.  He  had  no 
friends.  He  lived  by  begging  at  the  roadside.  An  old 
man  through  ignorance  had  contracted  a  vile  disease. 
He  had  been  compelled  to  beg  for  years.  No  one 
wanted  him  in  his  home.  It  took  him  eight  days  to 
walk  twenty-five  miles  to  a  Christian  hospital,  where 
he  finally  received  healing  for  body  and  soul.  The 
friendless  sick  are  left  to  die  by  the  roadside,  and  their 
exposed  bodies  are  seen  by  multitudes  passing  every 
hour.  If  along  country  roads  the  body  may  be  left 
until  devoured  by  wolves,  only  a  grinning  skull  remains 
to  tell  of  the  tragedy." 

The  scale  of  living  is  so  low  and  the  ignorance  so 
dense,  that  when  an  animal  dies  it  may  be  cut  up  and 
used  for  food.  Death  stalks  in  the  path  of  such  gross 
ignorance.  The  kitchen  refuse  is  thrown  out  at  the  front 
door  and  forms  into  a  cesspool ;  the  result  is  typhoid 
fever.  There  is  no  relief  for  pain  but  the  deadly 
opium  pipe.  Tlie  number  of  its  victims — despite  the 
stringent  measures  for  prohibition — is  increasing  at 
an  appalling  rate.  A  diseased  eye  is  further  irritated 
by  dirty  hands  and  cloths  until  the  eyelids  are  drawn 
in  by  the  cicatricial  tissue.     The  final  result  is  opacity 

H.U.S.  N 


98  A  STRATEGIC  KEY 

of  the  cornea.  Ingrowing  toe-nails  become  an  adjunct 
of  bound  feet,  making  the  large  toe  a  festering  sore. 
Abscesses,  ulcers,  fistula,  and  all  their  relations,  run  riot 
under  the  cover  of  a  dirty,  gummy  plaster.  Their 
repulsive  appearance  is  hid  from  the  human  eye,  but 
natural  drainage  is  denied,  and  the  vitality  is  weakened 
by  the  poison  forced  back  into  the  system.  A  piece 
of  injured  or  diseased  bone  must  be  allowed  to  slowly 
disintegrate  and  discharge  itself  in  the  form  of  pus. 
Some  of  the  doctors  have  an  experimental  knowledge 
that  is  really  valuable,  but  it  is  so  mixed  up  with  super- 
stition as  to  render  it  inert,  if  not  dangerous  to  life. 

Here  is  a  field  for  the  investment  of  talent  by  the 
best  young  physicians  of  our  day,  whose  culture,  scientific 
knowledge,  and  consecration  may  open  new  centres  for 
spreading  the  light  of  the  Gospel,  and  through  vrhose 
healing  ministry  thousands  may  open  their  doors  and 
catch  their  first  glimpse  of  the  Christ — the  Teacher, 
Healer,  and  Eedeemer  of  our  race.  This  is  the  more 
urgent  now  because  the  Chinese  are  coming  to  see  that 
the  true  standard  by  which  movements  and  religions 
must  be  measured,  is  their  capacity  to  minister  to  human 
need. 


VII 

SUPERSTITIONS  AND  ABSURDITIES 


99 


"Each  worker  for  Christ,  in  his  own  particular  sphere,  meets 
with  many  valleys  and  mountains,  crooked  places  and  rough  ones, 
which  God  alone  can  deal  with.  Let  him  rejoice  not  only  that 
God's  power  is  equal  to  the  occasion,  but  also  that  there  are  diffi- 
culties of  such  a  nature  as  to  make  the  putting  forth  of  that  poAver 
a  visible  and  notable  thing." — J.  Hudson  Taylor. 

"  I  went  to  the  East  with  no  enthusiasm  as  to  missionary  enter- 
prise. I  came  back  with  the  fixed  conviction  that  missionaries 
are  the  great  agents  of  civilisation."— Hon.  W.  B.  Reed,  United 
States  Commissioner. 


VII 

SUPERSTITIONS  AND  ABSURDITIES 

Superstition  seems  to  be  a  common  possession  among 
men.  Indeed,  if  the  searchlight  were  turned  upon 
Christendom  by  some  al»le  seer  of  lieatheudom,  and  all 
the  gamut  of  its  accepted  fables  and  superstitious 
catalogued  and  aptly  commented  upon,  the  results  would 
be  not  far  from  startling.  But  it  is,  of  course,  easily 
seen  that  there  is  a  tremendous  dittereuce  between  the 
simple  old  wives'  fables  which  linger  in  the  West,  and  the 
inrooted  faith  in  the  presence  and  jjowers  of  infuriated 
demons  in  pagan  lands.  It  is  the  ditterence  of  shadow 
to  substance,  and  of  enchained  fears  and  light  jesting. 

Heathen  lands  seem  to  possess  a  peculiar  "  psycho- 
logical climate."  Missions  have  to  note  this.  Nor  is 
this  fact  to  be  lightly  treated.  Over  the  moral  and 
intellectual  destinies  of  men  this  climatic  environment 
is  a  big  formative  factor.  Here  is  au  arena  where  there 
is  more  than  a  mere  diflerencc  of  view-point.  It  is 
actual  and  decisive.  We  have  seen  some  frogs  that 
seem  to  take  on  the  colour  of  the  limb  of  tree  upon 
which  they  rested  by  the  waterside.  Language,  ex- 
pression, manners,  and  customs,  as  well  as  the  products  of 
the  soil,  attest  this  principle.  No  amount  of  erudition 
in  the  study  can  ever  adequately  grasp  this  potent  law 


I02  SUPERSTITIONS  AND  ABSURDITIES 

of  life  so  much  as  a  shoulder-to-slioulder  contact  with  it, 
in  and  among  its  respective  peoples. 

We  are  as  much  an  enigma  to  the  average  China- 
man as  he  is  to  us.  He  tells  us  the  bias  is  in  our 
peculiarly  shaped  eye.  Why  we  do  not  have  long  black 
hair,  almond  eyes,  and  yellow  face,  is  to  him  a  baffling 
mystery.  He  simply  capitulates  by  pitying  us.  His 
perspective  is  his  own,  and  he  is  satisfied  with  his 
oblique  vision.  We  find  it  difficult  to  take  a  racial 
diagnosis,  or  to  locate  each  other  in  the  respective  origins 
of  our  ethnology. 

But  when  the  searchlight  of  reason  and  science  is 
turned  on  the  superstitions  and  absurdities  of  heathenism, 
the  whole  situation  is  at  once  apparent.  Every  system 
is  known  by  its  fruits.  Nor  is  there  any  unkind  ex- 
aggeration in  this  statement.  They  have  become  vain  in 
their  imaginations,  foolisli  in  their  reasonings,  and  piti- 
fully ridiculous  in  all  their  conclusions. 

Heathendom  turns  a  complete  somersault  in  its 
common-sense.  One  fact  tells.  They  keep  up  the 
devil's  birthday,  as  over  against  our  Christmas,  and 
their  j9Hm«  ecclesia  is  the  temple  to  the  god  of  the 
Eastern  hell !  They  paint  spear-heads  over  doors  and 
windows  to  keep  away  evil  spirits.  Charms  are  worn  by 
the  children  to  keep  away  diseases.  Boys  are  dressed  in 
girls'  clotlies  to  deceive  the  devils,  lest  the  son  and  heir 
should  bo  mysteriously  kidnapped.  The  dead  are  often 
placed  outside  of  the  houses  for  fear  of  the  "death 
contagion."  It  is  said  ladies  use  rats'  flesh  at  dinner  as 
a  hair  restorer !  In  sendiug  the  paper  kitchen  god — a 
paper  image  — back  to  heaven  every  year,  the  Chinese 
housekeeper  smears  the  lips  of  the  idol  with  molasses, 
so  that  it  might,  on  arriving  at  the  pearly  city,  report  a 


A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  CONUNDRUM  103 

sweet  tale  to  the  Great  Spirit,  and  bring  back  good  luck 
and  fair  harvests. 

Certain  acts  have  a  prescribed  value.  Merits  and 
demerits  are  assigned.  Buying  a  coffin,  setting  free  birds, 
fish,  crabs,  and  shrimps  that  are  offered  for  sale,  are  all 
rewarded.  Destroying  books  of  false  religions,  gatheiing 
up  scraps  of  printed  paper,  will  bring  good  luck  for  a 
thousand  days. 

He  who  uses  lettered  paper  to  kindle  a  fire  will  have 
ten  demerits  and  itchy  sore  legs.  He  who  burns  it  in  a 
filtliy  place,  twenty  demerits,  sore  eyes  and  blindness. 
Levelling  a  grave  is  punished  by  fifty  demerits ;  digging 
up  a  corpse  by  a  hundred  ;  killing  a  male  child  by  two 
hundred.  Nothing  is  said  about  destroying  unwelcome 
girl  babies.  The  list  of  rewards  and  punishments  goes 
on  ad  infinitum. 

Should  a  fire  occur,  the  imfortunate  loser  is  beaten  by 
the  official  for  carelessness,  and  is  not  allowed  inside  any 
other  house  for  three  days.  The  "  fire  devil "  has  to  be 
avoided.  Should  the  victim  be  able  to  convince  the 
magistrate  that  it  was  a  "  heavenly  fire,"  caused  by  a  fox 
spirit,  etc.  etc.,  he  may  then  avoid  a  beating,  and  possibly 
have  his  house  turned  into  a  shrine  or  a  temple.  In  a 
drought  or  a  flood  certain  city  gates  are  closed.  If  there 
is  great  heat,  the  "  south "  gate  which  rules  the  "  fire 
element "  is  closed ;  if  floods  destroy  crops,  the  "  north  " 
sate  which  controls  the  "  water  element "  is  closed. 
The  elements  must  be  kept  in  equipoise,  or  heaven  and 
earth  might  collapse. 

"  Calling  back  the  soul "  is  a  weird  and  vague  idea. 
By  rivers  and  ponds,  over  city  walls,  and  by  doorsills, 
voices  day  and  night  moan  and  call  to  the  souls  to 
return  to  the  bodies  of  people  who  are  sick  or  demented. 


I04  SUPERSTITIONS  AND  ABSURDITIES 

Some  eat  a  "  charmed  "  egg,  decorate  and  carry  a  bird  to 
the  Chen  Hwang  Miao — or  God  of  the  City  Temple — and 
ask  at  the  ten  departments  of  Hades  if  the  soul  is 
detained  there,  and  pray  that  it  may  follow  the  perfume 
of  incense  back  to  the  home. 

Recently  an  official  astronomer  was  whipped  with 
bamboo  for  a  miscalculation.  When  gambling,  or  about 
to  gamble  with  cards,  or  dice,  the  family  order  the  eyes 
of  the  idol  to  be  covered  up  until  the  game  is  over.  A 
god  that  is  cunning  enough  to  see  through  their  cheating 
would  not  be  tolerated.  Upon  a  missionary  remonstrat- 
ing with  a  heathen  for  burning  paper  money,  and  all  the 
paraphernalia  at  the  grave  of  a  departed  relative,  the 
mourner  motioned  him  to  be  silent,  saying :  "  Hush  !  that 
stupid  idol  doesn't  know  any  better.  Do  you  think  we'd 
be  so  foolish  as  to  put  in  genuine  coin  ? " 

In  the  city  of  Luho,  in  Kiangsu  province,  a  woman 
wTnt  to  a  temple  to  pray  for  the  recovery  of  her  son  from 
smallpox.  She  promised  offerings  and  made  vows.  The 
stipulations  were  to  the  effect  that  if  her  son  recovered, 
and  was  immune  from  the  pitmarks  of  the  disease,  she 
would  offer  him  as  a  priest  to  the  temple  for  ever.  He 
recovered,  but  the  smallpox  marks  were  there,  and, 
worse  than  ever,  they  were  black.  Enraged  at  this 
dereliction  of  duty  on  the  part  of  the  idol,  she  dashed  off 
to  the  temple  with  a  coil  of  rope  in  her  hand.  Forcing 
her  way  into  the  temple,  she  summarily  lassoed  the  paste- 
board deity,  and  ran  off  to  the  river  by  the  crowded  city 
gate,  nothing  daunted,  and  shouting :  "  I'll  teach  you  to 
lose  your  benign  influence,  idol !  "  soused  the  innocent 
offender  into  the  waters  several  times — when  to  her 
amazement  the  god  melted  away  in  the  rushing  waters. 

Their  strange  manners  and  customs  appear   peculiar 


RESULTS  OF  FOOTBINDING 


lO: 


{From  the  "Forii(j)i  Field.") 

Translation  of  Chinese  niotto  : — "To  tamper  with  creation 
is  to  spoil  the  harmony  of  heaven." 

a  sketch  made  from  an  x-eay  puoto  of  a  chinese 

woman's  foot. 

Drawn  by  the  Rei'.  W.  A.  Cornahy. 


H.U.S. 


io6  SUPERSTITIONS  AND  ABSURDITIES 

to  us  because  we  do  not  see  them  as  they  do ;  nor  do  we 
see  ourselves  as  they  see  us.  Of  course,  the  view-point  is 
a  great  factor  in  any  perspective.  Still,  to  us,  the  celestial 
has  much  to  amuse,  puzzle,  and  criticise.  Tell  him  that 
their  tiny-footed  "  golden  lily  "  ladies  are  to  be  pitied,  and 
he  asks  why  our  women  bind  their  waists.  Criticise  his 
long  queue  as  a  useless  appendage,  and  he  says  our  hair- 
dress  is  no  longer  than  that  of  a  monkey.  Ask  him  why 
Chinese  ladies  walk  assisted  by  a  long  pipe,  and  he  asks 
why,  if  they  think  themselves  better  looking  than  their 
celestial  sisters,  our  ladies  should  veil  their  faces  in 
shame !  We  cannot  know  why  they  count  the  fish  by 
the  tail,  and  the  cows  by  the  head ;  purchase  oil  by  the 
pound,  and  silk  by  the  ounce.  It  is  "  custom,"  and  that 
is  the  end  of  the  argument.  Lazy  students  may  be 
punished  by  the  Literary  Chancellor  by  being  whipped 
with  the  bamboo.  Should  the  weather  change  while  you 
are  travelling  and  are  staying  at  an  inn,  no  one  mentions 
the  matter  of  rain,  cold,  or  likely  disadvantage.  In  an 
indirect  way  it  may  be  referred  to.  The  same  is  true  of 
a  dream  while  travelling.  An  ill  omen  must  be  silenced 
and  sufibcated  by  being  kept  in  the  dark,  lest  the  spirits 
should  catch  on  and  be  angered.  All  the  Chinese  shop 
fronts  are  open.  Tinkers,  tailors,  jewellers,  lapidarists, 
butchers,  bakers,  rattan-basket  makers,  drapers,  doctors, 
dentists,  midwives,  marriage-makers,  cobblers,  ironmongers, 
silk  stores,  tea  shops,  and  a  thousand  and  one  other  ways 
of  making  a  living  are  all  open  and  exposed  in  view  of 
all  the  rushing,  confused,  and  boisterous  crowds.  There  are 
no  shutters,  as  we  use  them,  and  no  glass  windows  where 
goods  are  exposed  for  sale.  No  goods  are  priced  with 
tickets,  but  all  is  done  by  barter.  You  cannot  tell,  when 
the  jeweller   asks  you   fifty  dollars  for  a  ring  or  jade 


MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS  107 

stone,  whether  it  will  finally  be  offered  you  for  ten. 
There  is  no  ssense  of  honour  involved.  Notwithstanding 
that  the  large  stores  liaug  their  attractive  perpendicular 
notice  boards,  and  one  of  them  usually  Siiys, "  Chen  pu  cr 
kifl,"  meaning,  "  No  two  prices  liere,"  the  native  proverb 
says :  "  Who  treads  here  with  foreign  feet,  cannot  sure 
avoid  our  cheat."  Every  man  that  goes  out  at  night 
takes  a  lantern.  If  he  did  not  have  it,  he  might  be 
taken  for  a  thief.  The  ancestral  name  is  usually  written 
on  the  lamp  with  some  lucky  inscription. 

There  is  no  courtship  in  China.  Brides  do  not  see  the 
faces  of  their  bridegrooms  until  after  the  ceremony  is 
over.  Sometii)ies  the  bridal  trousseau  is  worn  for  three 
days  and  three  nights.  During  this  time  a  genuine 
exhibition  of  modesty  demands  that  the  bride  keep  her 
eyes  closed  for  three  days. 

The  Chinese  cat  vice  three  times  a  day.  They  ply 
their  chop-sticks  as  dexterously  as  we  do  knife  and  fork. 
To  them  our  use  of  the  knife  is  barbarous.  At  table, 
superstition  enters  in,  and  the  places  are  appointed  with 
regard  to  signs,  age,  and  direction  from  which  guests 
come.  The  head  and  hairdress  are  peculiar.  They  do 
not  seem  to  realise  that  the  queue  is  the  badge  of  ser- 
vitude forced  upon  them  by  the  conquering  Manchus. 
Moustachios  are  not  worn  until  the  man  is  over  forty 
years  of  age.  Married  women  have  the  hair  pulled 
out  over  the  forehead.  At  a  glance  you  can  tell 
whether  a  woman  is  a  maiden,  engaged,  or  married.  The 
elite  cultivate  long  finger-nails.  Some  of  them  are 
eight  inches  long  ;  at  this  coveted  length  they  are  encased 
in  a  silver  or  bamboo  shield  which  runs  up  the  sleeve. 
Funeral  services  are  costly,  and  are  held  in  highest 
esteem.     Filial   sons  will  present  aged    parents  with  a 


loS  SUPERSTITIONS  AND  ABSURDITIES 

beautiful  coffin,  which  is  often  kept  in  the  guest-room  in 
the  house.  Incense  burns  around  it  night  and  day  to 
keep  away  evil  influences.  When  a  person  dies,  the  body 
is  elaborately  dressed  and  paper  money  is  piled  in  the 
coffin.  This  pays  the  way  to  Nirvana,  bribes  the  spirits, 
and  wins  soul-rest. 

The  children  in  school  read  and  study  aloud.  Each 
tries  to  outdo  the  other  in  sliouting ;  the  prevailing  idea 
being,  the  greater  the  noise  the  deeper  the  impression  on 
the  stomach.  The  intellect  is  located  in  the  bowels.  The 
school  terms  for  the  year  in  some  village  schools,  read 
thus :  "  Ten  bushels  of  wheat,  ten  bushels  of  fine  wheat, 
a  picul  of  salt,  twenty  pounds  of  pork,  a  keg  of  wine,  a 
gallon  of  hemp -oil,  two  pounds  of  sugar,  a  bunch  of 
incense,  and  a  congratulatory  packet  of  sweetmeats." 

Some  of  the  Oriental  customs  are  as  fascinating  as 
they  are  peculiar.  Their  politeness  is  extreme  and  often 
wearisome.  One  of  the  happy  thhigs  about  greeting  is 
that  friends  shake  their  own  hands.  Hats  arc  kept  on 
as  a  mark  of  respect  in  calling.  No  one  would  think  of 
presenting  his  or  her  own  card.  Spectacles  are  taken  off 
when  addressing  tlie  guest.  Women  and  girls  will  not 
sit  on  the  other  end  fjf  a  bench  where  a  man  is  sitting. 
Should  a  guest  enter  the  room,  they  retire.  In  the 
mission  churches  the  men  and  women  are  separated  by 
an  aisle ;  often  a  red  screen  hangs  between.  There  is  no 
flirtation  in  the  mission  churches.  Asking  a  few  girls 
to  sing  in  the  church  choir  would  be  an  irreparable 
insult.  In  many  mission  schools,  however,  this  hyper- 
sensitiveness  and  false  modesty  is  being  overcome. 

Some  of  their  customs  appear  to  us  to  be  childish  in 
the  extreme.  For  instance,  an  old  man  can  sit  for  hours 
enjoying  flying  his  musical  kite.     If  for  no  other  reason 


TOPSY-  TUR  VVDOM  109 

than  that  the  music  of  its  liorn  can  please  the  spirits 
of  wiud  and  air,  he  seems  to  revel  in  its  rest  and  leisure. 
The  theatre  is  as  sacred  as  the  church.  Both  men  and 
women  smoke  tobacco  and  opium.  A  man  will  kill 
himself  to  spite  his  neighbour.  Policemen,  soldiers,  and 
sailors  carry  umbrellas  while  on  duty.  In  a  hundred 
different  ways  they  are  the  very  opposite  of  what  we 
deem  to  be  right  and  proper.  They  wear  white  for 
funerals,  and  red  for  wedilings.  They  write  the  surname 
first.  They  read  up  and  down,  instead  of  from  left  to 
right.  They  mount  a  horse  on  the  right,  and  their  seat 
of  honour  is  on  the  left.  They  whiten  instead  of  blacken 
the  soles  of  their  shoes.  Their  wheelbarrows  have  sails, 
and  their  ships  are  without  keels.  They  have  a  clock 
with  stationary  hands,  while  the  timepiece  goes  round. 
They  have  roses  without  scent,  and  a  candlestick  that 
fits  the  candle.  More  strange  than  all  is  that  they  have 
a  literature  without  an  alphabet,  and  a  language  without 
a  grammar. 

A  Chinese  resident  in  .Vnierica  wrote  to  a  relative 
in  China : 

"  You  cannot  civilise  these  foreign  devils.  They  are 
beyond  redemption.  They  will  live  for  weeks  and 
months  without  touching  a  mouthful  of  rice ;  but  they 
eat  the  Hesh  of  bullocks  and  sheep  in  enormous 
quantities.  Tliat  is  why  they  smell  so  badly;  they 
smell  like  sheep  themselves.  Every  day  they  take  a 
bath  to  rid  themselves  of  their  disagreeable  odours,  but 
they  do  not  succeed.  Neither  do  they  eat  their  meat 
cooked  in  small  pieces.  It  is  carried  into  the  room  in 
large  chunks,  often  half  raw,  and  they  cut  and  slash  and 
tear  it  apart.  They  eat  with  knives  and  prongs.  It 
makes  a  civilised  being  perfectly  nervous.     One  fancies 


no  SUPERSTITIONS  AND  ABSURDITIES 

himself  in  the  presence  of  sword-swallowers.  They  even 
sit  doicn  at  the  same  table  with  women,  and  the  latter 
are  served  first,  reversing  the  order  of  nature.  .  .  .  Yet 
the  women  are  to  be  pitied,  too.  On  festive  occasions 
they  are  dragged  around  a  room  to  the  accompaniment 
of  tlie  most  hellish  music." 

It  may  thus  be  easily  seen  that  "  recriminations 
regarding  national  customs "  are  not  calculated  to  be 
successful  in  convincing  either  party ;  so  that  we  might 
with  good  grace  and  discretion  be  reminded  that 

"There  is  so  much  batl  in  the  best  of  us, 
Aud  so  much  good  in  the  worst  of  us, 
That  it  liardly  behooves  any  of  us 
To  talk  about  the  rest  of  us." 


VTTl 
THE  CHURCH  LOYAL  AND  POWERFUL 


"  Costly  catliedrals,  ornate  churches,  and  ecclesiastical  millinery 
seem  as  a  travesty  on  our  faith,  to  the  weary,  tired,  heroic,  and 
battle-scarred  missionaries  who  stand  bare-handed  in  the  front- 
fighting  line.  It  is  as  the  callous  painting  of  the  lifeboat  when  the 
wrecks  are  pleading,  and  when  the  call  is  loud  and  long  and  real  to 
man  the  lifeboat  and  send  it  o'ev  the  dark  waves  to  seek  and  save 
the  lost." 

"Never  so  hopeful,  but  it  is  a  critical  time."— Dr.  W.  A.  P. 
Martin. 

"We  are  a  supernatural  people  engaged  in  a  supernatural  work." 
— Dr.  Hudson  Taylor. 

"Educate  I     Educate  !     Educate  I  " — Dr.  Griffith  John. 


VIII 

THE  CHURCH  LOYAL  AND  POWERFUL 

HiSTOKY  recounts  no  grander  acbievenients  than  the 
triiuuphs  of  the  Cluucli  during  her  early  life,  when 
she  was  obeying  her  Founder's  imperial  command.  It 
was  a  regal  commission,  and  its  ambassadors  were  the 
ministers  plenipotentiary  in  its  ready  and  swift  execution. 
It  embraced  and  embodied  all  the  facts,  commands,  and 
promises  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  all  the  fulfilment 
of  its  blessed  redemptive  atonement. 

In  those  early  days  the  Church  had  an  enduement 
of  Divine  power.  When  she  prayed,  the  earth  shook ; 
mountains  were  removed  ;  doors  were  opened ;  shackles 
rent  from  the  feet  of  apostles;  tyrants  and  mobs  were 
rendered  helpless ;  empues  were  recast ;  and  the  powers 
of  darkness  Hod  before  the  penetrating  gleams  of 
light. 

In  a  few  years  from  the  scenes  of  Calvary,  it  was 
announced  tliat  Pan  was  dead,  and  the  Olympian  Jove 
was  hurled  fruni  his  high  seat.  It  was  only  when  the 
churches  ceased  to  go  that  the  power  departed.  As 
soon  as  the  missionary  fire  dwindled,  the  presence  of 
Christ  left  them.  Not  until  the  Jerusalem  Church  was 
struck  with  a  Divine  blow  of  persecution  did  she  become 
scattered  far  and  wide.     This  new  infusion  of  life  gave 

H.U.S.  113  p 


114    THE  CHURCH  LOYAL  AND  POWERFUL 

the  churches  to  Palestine,  Arabia,  North  Africa,  and 
Asia  Minor. 

It  speaks  well  for  the  heroisms  and  chivalry  of  the 
newly  initiated  missionary  churches  that  in  less  than 
seventy  years  after  the  imperial  mandate  was  given  by 
our  blessed  Lord,  nearly  all  the  Koman  Empire,  from 
Babylon  even  on  to  Spain,  had  been  penetrated  by  the 
missionaries,  and  mapped  out  for  strategic  occupancy 
by  the  Apostles  of  the  Kingdom. 

tSo,  to-day,  as  then,  the  same  persistent,  all-conquering 
power  of  the  Gospel  is  winning  its  way.  It  is  proving 
that  it  is  superior  to  all  other  faiths  and  forces.  Modern 
civilisation  and  the  witness  of  these  great  awakening 
Asian  empires  attests  this  fact.  Are  not  all  the  great 
nations  nominally  Christian  nations  ?  Japanese  states- 
men, with  a  tinge  of  pride,  speak  of  Japan  as  enjoying 
a  newly  born  Christian  civilisation.  The  same  is  true 
in  many  articles  in  their  splendid  vernacular  press. 
Is  it  not  true  also  that  no  heathen  power  legislates  or 
influences  the  world's  thought  ? 

The  Great  Challenge. — Tlie  same  challenge  that 
Christianity  threw  down  to  Eomau,  Celt,  Greek,  Teuton, 
Persian,  Jew,  and  Mohammedan,  it  repeats  to-day  to  the 
Hindoo,  Chinese,  Japanese,  and  Korean.  To  put  it 
tersely,  Christianity  is  both  on  exhibition  and  on  trial 
to-day  in  Asia.  It  needs  the  best  gifts,  highest  agencies, 
and  most  thoroughly  equipped  representatives,  iDoth  to 
witness  to  its  power,  and  to  present  and  represent  its 
claims  before  its  ever  increasing  heathen-world  audience. 

A  great  and  effectual  door  is  opened  :  and  there  are 
many  adversaries.  We  must  not  allow  China  to  be 
proselytised  by  the  well-equipped  and  liberally  financed 
materialistic  teachers  from  Japan.     Within  a  decade  the 


ii6 


"  Inasmuch  " 

She  came  to  the  Christian  Hospital  in  Nanking  with  a 
terribly  distorted  and  mutilated  foot — the  result  of  the  cruel 
and  disastrous  practice  of  footbinding.  All  that  Christian  love 
and  skill  could  do  was  done  for  her  ;  but  hers  was  a  hopeless 
case.  Under  the  anaesthetic  her  feet  were  amputated.  She 
pleaded  with  the  missionaries  to  shield  her  from  a  life  which 
would  be  worse  than  death.  To-day  she  is  a  bright  little 
Christian,  and  under  the  care  of  Principal  Miss  Emma  Lyon, 
in  the  Nanking  Christian  College,  is  a  living  witness  to  the 
uplifting  saving  power  of  the  Gospel.  "  Inasmuch."  The 
lower  illustration  shows  her  foot  in  Necrosis. 


Chinese  "Golden  Lilies" 

This  is  the  name  given  to  the  crushed  and  bound  feet  of 
Chinese  girls  and  ladies.  The  fashionable  size  of  a  shoe 
would  average  from  3!  to  4  inches.  The  shoes  are  beauti- 
fully embroidered,  and  are  mostly  made  at  home.  They  are 
fastened  on  with  silk  straps,  and  taper  to  a  delicate  point. 


GREETING  THE  MESSIAH  117 

whole  situatiou  will  have  been  changed.  It  is  the  nick 
of  time  to  co-operate  with  God  in  the  evangelisation  of 
these  millions,  who  are  waiting — yes,  waiting  in  China, 
for  some  more  certain,  sound,  and  redeeming  life  to  replace 
their  eftete  religions  systems.  We  must  convince  the 
Chinese,  in  grace  and  in  truth,  that  it  is  the  religion  of 
Jesus  which,  in  every  age,  in  all  climes,  and  under  all 
conditions,  has  been  the  spring  of  its  best  civilisation 
and  the  controlling  power  of  its  untiring  progress. 

Our  Asiatic  Christ. — Coming  as  it  does  to  Asia, 
it  is  not  an  exotic  element.  It  should  not  be  for- 
gotten that  Christ  joined  the  human  family  through  an 
Asiatic  family.  His  disciples,  too,  were  Orientals.  One 
is  reminded  here  of  tlie  work  l)y  Mozoomdar  on  The 
Oriental  Christ. 

In  this  able  work  we  are  told  that  it  is  only 
through  Oriental  eyes  that  we  can  fully  understand  and 
appreciate  the  Christ  and  His  mission.  While  this  is 
interesting  reading,  it  must  always  be  conceded  that  our 
conception  of  Jesus  must  ever  be  spiritual  as  well  as 
Oriental  and  poetic.  Here,  then,  is  a  magnificent 
opportunity.  The  Orient  is  again  greeting  the  Messiah. 
Native  preachers  speak  of  Him  as  "  Our  Asiatic  Christ." 
It  is  to  Him  these  East-lands  are  looking  for  salvation, 
liberty,  light,  and  truth,  and  for  the  certainties  of  the 
life  that  now  is,  as  well  as  of  the  life  that  is  to  be. 

Viewed  from  the  high  vantage  ground  of  the  field 
of  missionary  conflict,  it  is  universally  agreed  that  the 
work  of  the  evangelisation  of  China,  Japan,  Manchuria, 
Mongolia,  Korea,  and  isolated  Thibet,  must  be  regarded 
chiefly  as  an  Asiatic  enterprise.  In  order  to  bring  about 
this  splendid  consummation,  the  native  church  must  have 
leaders.      Several  wise  and  able  native  leaders  could  at 


ii8    THE  CHURCH  LOYAL  AND  POWERFUL 

this  present  moment,  if  they  were  in  evidence,  render 
noble  and  lasting  service  to  the  cause  by  emphasising 
the  necessity  of  good  citizenship,  and  proving  to  the 
Government  that  they  are  not  a  "  dangerous  revolutionary 
cult,"  who,  under  the  i^gis  of  its  role,  are  a  peril  to 
themselves  and  a  menace  to  the  integrity  of  the 
state. 

The  Peerless  Service. — Never  was  there  greater 
need  for  teachers,  evangelists,  leaders.  The  crises  demand 
that  the  hest-equipped.  and  strongest  men  and  women  he 
sent  into  the  foreign  field.  The  late  Professor  Henry 
Drummoud  saw  in  China  "  the  greatest  mission  field 
in  the  world " ;  he  was.  a  seer.  He  saw  that  nothing 
but  the  Gospel  could  save  China.  No  culture  is  too 
great,  no  genius  too  high,  and  no  gifts  in  genuine 
consecration  too  simple,  to  devote  to  the  peerless  service 
of  the  mission  field. 

Talk  about  the  investment  of  influence  ! — here  is  a  field 
of  undiscovered  wealth.  To  those  who  know  the  true 
genius  of  Christianity,  and  can,  with  scientific  and 
philosophic  training,  revitalise  their  social  and  political 
economy,  and  apply  the  best  adaptation  to  China's 
present  needs — such  men  are  the  men  most  needed  there 
at  the  present  liour. 

The  conversion  of  China  and  Japan  will  be  the 
casting  of  tlie  last  die  in  the  great  work  of  shaping 
and  impressing  the  superscription  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
upon  the  now  melting  ores  of  these  miglitiest  nations 
of  antiquity. 

For  young  men  and  women  who  will  lay  tliemselves 
out  through  lectures,  preaching,  literature,  the  science  of 
healing,  working  up  a  clientele  in  the  grace  of  friendship, 
aiming  to  reach  the  intellect  as  well  as  the  heart  of  the 


IN  THE  GREATEST  FIELD  119 

empire,  there  is  a  splendid  open  door.  And  better  still, 
for  young  men  and  women  who  combine  all  the  modern 
culture,  the  consecrated  spirit  and  the  Christlike  life, 
who  liave  the  highest  originality  and  power,  and  who 
will  capitalise  their  personality  into  a  passion  for  saving 
men,  who  will  lift  up  Jesus,  though  they  themselves  be 
lifted  up  on  a  cross,  loho  have  the  enduemcnt  in  the  blessed 
gifts  and  i)owcr  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  their  lives — to  such 
there  is  a  career  in  the  foreign  mission  field,  at  least  as 
great  and  as  rational  as  there  is  at  home. 

"NVc  need  such  men,  and  need  them  now,  and  we  need 
mightily  the  ministry  of  intercession  in  all  the  churches 
on  our  behalf ;  because  if  these  tremendous  moral  changes 
are  to  be  permanent,  they  must  be  so  ensured  by  vital 
spiritual  causes. 

China  as  a  Mission  Field. — China  is  the  greatest 
mission  field  in  Asia.  It  is  this  without  a  rival.  It  is 
so  because  its  great  empire  is  open  to  missions,  its 
Government  is  favourable  to  reforms,  and  its  people 
are  ready  for  a  new  civilisation.  It  is  so  because  the 
iutiuences  that  are  working  upon  its  religious  and 
political  life  are  taking  effect  as  never  before. 

It  is  essentially  a  greater  missicm  field  than  India, 
because  India,  essentially,  is  not  its  own.  China  was  once 
a  synonym  for  mildew  and  moss.  Now  she  is  moving  at 
a  rate  which  supersedes  the  rate  of  momentum  at  which 
any  other  awakening  nation  ever  moved. 

China  is  the  costliest  mission  field  in  the  world.  And, 
if  it  be  argued  that  she  has  been  abnormally  slow  in  ac- 
cepting Christianity,  it  should  be  remembered  that  massive 
bodies  move  slowly,  and  often,  in  other  circumstances, 
what  is  gained  in  velocity  is  lost  in  power.  Certainly 
no  nation  has  ever  been  less  known,  more  universally 


I20    THE  CHURCH  LOYAL  AND  POWERFUL 

criticised,  or  credited  with  fewer  of  the  graces  of 
humanity,  than  China. 

It  is  possible  and  probable  that  China  will  now  accom- 
plish in  a  decade  what  it  took  Europe  a  hundred  years 
to  understand.  The  multitude  and  magnitude  of  the 
reform  movements  are  impressive. 

It  is  the  giant  continent  among  the  ancient  empires. 
Its  physical  features  and  its  populations  are  unique. 
In  its  history,  language,  literature,  classics  and  religions, 
government,  industries,  internal  wealth  and  external 
influence,  China  is,  l^otli  by  fact  and  by  conmion  consent, 
the  miglitiest  Asiatic  Colossus.  Once  a  land  of  mystery 
and  of  bafHing  impressions,  it  is  now  an  open  book  and 
an  open  door. 

The  most  significant  feature  is  tlie  attitude  of  the 
highest  officials  towards  missions  and  civilisation.  Not 
a  little  disturbed  at  the  audacity  of  the  Christian 
programme,  the  mandarinate,  nevertheless,  patronise  and 
support  the  missionary  presses  and  publisliing  houses.  They 
are,  at  the  same  time,  regardhig  with  awe  the  fact  that 
there  are  vast  numbers  of  awakeoing  people  getting  their 
first  impressions  of  liberty.  It  has  been  expressed  to  the 
writer  on  more  than  one  occasion,  at  various  lectureships, 
that  the  comdction  is  widely  deepening  that  the  old  and 
effete  religious  are  about  to  declare  their  decease,  and 
that  Christianity  is  altout  to  become  the  national 
and  popular  faith. 

A  Clarified  View. — China,  as  a  mission  field,  is  better 
known  to-day,  because  its  needs,  problems,  and  acliievc- 
nients  have  been  viewed  on  the  field  itself,  rather  than 
from  the  home  offices  of  its  respective  mission  boards. 
The  sending  of  the  leading  missionary  secretaries,  the 
deputations   representing   Sunday-school   work,   and  the 


A  GLITTERING  PRIZE  121 

splendid  type  of  men  sent  out  to  the  recent  Centenary 
Meeting  of  missions  in  China,  cannot  but  be  fraught  with 
great  blessing.  Stiitesmen,  travellers,  students,  writers, 
consular  officials,  and  even  "  special  commissioners  "  and 
"  critics,"  have  found  the  field  with  its  conditions  and 
results  greater  than  ever  tliey  had  dreamed. 

China  is  a  rich  mine.  The  greatest  and  most  power- 
ful nations  in  tlie  world  have  run  awful  risks  for  its 
immense  markets  and  its  opulent  products.  The  great 
national  and  territorial  burglaries  committed  on  her 
splendid  coast-line  aroused  the  empire  to  appreciate  its 
own  enormous  mineral  and  industrial  wealth,  and  caused 
it  to  be  armed  ready  for  eventualities. 

Exploited  by  Christian  men,  tlie  results  netted  to  the 
cause  of  Christian  civilisiition  would  be  stupendouf. 
Left  alone  to  unprincipled  speculators  (if  that  were  now 
possible)  the  crime  woukl  be  as  appalling  as  it  would  be 
irremedialjle.  Wondrously  endowed  and  well  and  richly 
appointed,  the  whole  empire  should  be  evangelised  and 
civilised  at  any  cost. 

In  a  recent  issue  of  the  London  JDailf/  Mail,  the 
following  significant  words  appeared :  "  Around  the 
immense  area  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  the  embattled  nations 
of  the  world  are  gathering  as  the  nations  gathered  around 
the  Mediterranean  two  thousand  years  ago.  Careful  ob- 
servers universally  will  agree  that  the  greatest  events  of  the 
twentieth  century  probably  will  be  occupied  with  the  rim 
of  this  vast  saucer."  Current  human  history  is  proving 
that  such  prophetic  world-movements  are  now  in  being. 

Considered  even  on  the  low  plane  of  commercial 
and  political  strategy,  there  seems  to  be  no  other  way 
which  is  so  certain  of  securing  the  peace  of  the  world, 
and  of  preventing  the  much -dreaded  "  yellow  peril,"  than 

H.U.S.  Q 


122     THE  CHURCH  LOYAL  AND  POWERFUL 

to  conserve  ILe  inherent  faculties  of  mural,  cumniercial, 
and  industrial  worth  in  the  Chinese  race,  and  thus  keep 
their  war-fever  and  power-lust  from  ever  gaining  an 
overmastering  supremacy. 

The  Great  Renaissance. —  The  mighty  renaissance 
that  is  ahecting  China  is  not  local.  The  old  civil- 
isation is  passing  away.  The  old  paganisms,  the  old 
superstitions  are  going.  In  educational,  literary, 
commercial,  diplomatic,  industrial,  naval,  and  military 
circles  the  changes  are  indeed  startling.  Endowed  uni- 
versities and  equipped  Western  schools  are  being  rapidly 
nndtiplied.  Footbinding  is  prohibited,  and  the  opium 
curse  being  eradicated.  Temples  are  being  turned  into 
schools  in  all  the  provinces,  their  lands  confiscated,  and 
the  monies  arising  tlierefrom  utilised  for  educational 
purposes.  Questions  of  international  law,  and  the  friction 
caused  by  extraterritoriality,  are  being  discussed  with 
statesmanlike  sagacity.  The  empire  is  testing  the 
relative  value  of  European,  American,  and  Japanese 
instructors  in  their  schools  and  collegiate  halls. 

There  is  even  the  appearance  of  a  new  and  original 
puljlic  spirit  in  China.  It  is  asserting  itself  in  the 
cflusions  of  patriotic  songs.  There  is  a  national  sense 
of  apprehensiveness  at  the  unwise  seizure  of  strategic 
"  spheres  of  influence,"  as  well  as  the  lust  for  concessions 
in  coal  mines,  quarries,  forests,  fisheries,  etc.  The  fire 
of  patriotism  has  caught  on  in  Asia,  and  a  new  epoch  is 
inmiinent.  In  line  with  these  newly  moving  characters 
on  the  scene,  the  Imperial  Government  is  assisting  the 
students  in  schools  of  mining  and  agriculture,  and  in 
naval  and  military  circles. 

In  a  brief  space  of  time  we  shall  see  the  unequalled  and 
magnificent  chains  of  inland  waters  opened  to  navigation, 


A  RACE  FOR  SUPREMACY  123 

and  possibly  the  utilisation  of  the  canals  by  electric  and 
motor  boats  for  the  rapid  transport  of  the  immense 
produce  of  the  country. 

With  the  ushering  in  of  great  trunk  lines  of  railroad, 
and  the  consequent  development  of  internal  wealth  and 
external  influence,  there  are  splendid  markets  opened 
up,  which  will  surprise  the  commercial,  and  even  the 
industrial  and  productive  world.  There  is  offered,  in 
this  wonderful  land,  covering  every  variety  of  physical 
combinations,  splendid  scope  for  every  branch  of  agri- 
cultural and  engineering  science  to  be  brought  to  ita 
highest  state  of  financial  prosperity  and  mechanical 
efficiency. 

Science  of  Missions. — What  an  opening  for  the 
Christian  inventor,  merchant,  teacher,  literary  man,  to 
augment  and  interpret  in  the  highest  terms  of  commercial 
integrity  and  indu.strial  honour  the  larger  content  of  the 
wide  range  of  Christian  civilisation  !  Social  standards 
need  to  be  raised,  economic  ideals  purified,  moral 
standards  invested  with  the  fire  of  Divine  aid.  In  a 
word,  all  the  social,  moral,  educational,  and  industrial 
betterment  of  the  masses  is  a  beseeching  invitation  to 
superiority  to  assist  inferiority,  and  for  strength  to  lie 
gracious  unto  weakness. 

The  Christian  teacher  is  to  -  day  in  the  ascendant. 
He  can  aid  in  sanitary  and  agricultural  science,  assist  in 
mechanical  arts,  in  the  native  press,  be  wise  in  his  atti- 
tude to  political  ideals,  and  be  true  as  well  as  careful  in  his 
interpretation  of  all  practical  social  problems.  All  these 
great  opportunities  are  signals  beckoning  us  onward  on  the 
new  and  vivid  horizons  which  are  clearing  all  about  us. 

The  Eev.  S.  Isett  Woodbridge,  D.D.,  writes  in  this 
strain  :  "  The  science  of  missions  is  experimental ;  and, 


124     THE  CHURCH  LOYAL  AND  POWERFUL 

like  all  other  sciences,  it  is  progressive.  Not  that  the 
precious  story  of  the  Cross  in  its  main  purpose  varies,  but 
the  mode  of  presentation.  Under  the  conditions  which 
have  obtained  in  China  this  requires  more  than  ordinary 
skill,  tact,  and  knowledge.  Methods  have  been  growing 
better  ever  since  its  inception  in  China." 

What  a  splendid  field  is  here  offered  for  service  ! 
What  an  unprecedented  challenge  is  here  presented  to  the 
wealth,  culture,  and  facilities  which  are  in  the  hands  of 
the  Christian  Church  to-day  for  investment  !  Is  not  the 
very  trust  capital  for  this  Christ-commissioned  service  in 
our  own  hands  ? 

What  a  loud,  long,  and  clarion  call  comes  to  the  rich 
and  the  affluent — in  their  entrusted  stewardship — in  these 
last  days  of  unexampled  opportunity !  Many  are  in  a 
position  to  greatly  advance  the  extension  of  Christ's 
Kingdom  in  the  Far  East.  It  is  past  the  day  of 
experimenting.  The  history  and  action  of  the  past 
hundred  years  of  work  in  mission  lands  have  given  us 
a  science  of  missions.  To-day,  vast  sums  of  money  may 
be  entrusted  to  these  great  w^hitening  fields  to  gather  in 
the  richest  harvests  which  ever  waited  for  the  reaping. 

"  Thoughts  that  breathe  and  words  that  burn  "  have 
surged  up  in  our  hearts  while  we  have  watched  the 
sunrise  of  new  hopes  in  the  faces  of  China's  best  youth ; 
and  we  have  been  cheered  and  inspired  in  this  arduous 
service  while  we  have  seen  them  "  catch  on  "  to  some 
inspiration,  and  to  some  guiding  principle  in  the  new  and 
Divine  life.  It  should  thrill  the  reader  with  delight  to 
know  that  there  are,  to-day,  in  China  and  Japan,  and  all 
over  Mongolia  and  Manchuria,  thousands  of  the  best 
educated,  sanest,  and  open-minded  young  men  and  young 
women,   whose    hearts    and    minds    and    newly    created 


THOUGHTS  THAT  BREATHE  125 

affections  are  being  drawn  unto  the  loving  heart, 
transforming  power,  and  redeeming  grace  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

Looking  for  an  Apostle. — After  a  century  of  heroic 
effort  in  the  hardest  and  costliest  fightincr-ground  of  all 
the  Christian  centuries,  there  stands  to-day  a  church 
of  two  hundred  thousand  native  Christians,  pleading, 
praying,  a  nl  looking  for  a  man — an  apostle,  born  of 
their  own  people,  who  will  champion  the  faith  in 
China  as  did  Ulfilas,  Augustine,  Columba,  and  Boniface, 
whose  service  among  the  Goths,  Saxons  and  Angles 
supplied  the  Western  world  with  its  basic  principles 
of  religious  liberty  and  civilisation. 

When  the  churches,  either  by  the  catching  of  a  new 
beatific  vision  of  the  conijuest  of  the  world  for  Christ, 
or  by  the  revealing  searchlight  on  its  awful  needs  and 
claims — in  a  word,  when  the  Church  realises  as  deeply 
what  it  means  to  save  as  the  peo})le  realise  their 
great  need  of  salvation,  then  she  will  show  to  the  world 
and  to  herself  some  of  the  sweetest  surprises  of  grace 
and  miracles  of  redemption.  One  has  written  a  beauti- 
fully epigrammatic  thought  for  tlie  times  :  "  A  stationary 
church  and  a  moving  world  means  a  fatality  for  both." 
It  is  ever  true  that  the  Church  exists  only  as  its 
life  is  generative,  transitional,  and  communicative.  Its 
life  currents  proceed  from  a  centre  and  reach  out  to 
a  circumference.  "  Let  the  pulpit  give  its  proper  place 
to  the  subject  that  was  the  vision  of  prophets,  the  song 
of  sacred  poets,  the  consolation  of  the  Redeemer,  the 
labour  of  apostles,  the  ingathering  of  the  Gentiles  ;  and 
missions  would  have  a  new  standing  in  the  Church,  a 
fresh  development  in  the  world." 

It  is  not  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  whole  world, 


126    THE  CHURCH  LOYAL  AND  POWERFUL 

to-day,  is  known  and  accessible  to  Christianity.  The 
changes  and  preparations  of  the  century  are  vivid  with 
prophetic  meaning.  Primarily  each  of  these  splendid 
facilities  has  been  permitted  as  a  handmaid  to  the  gi'and 
enterprise  of  evangelising  the  nations.  The  master 
marches  of  science  in  unlocking  the  treasures  of  nature, 
and  in  pusliing  invention  after  invention ;  the  swift 
messengers  of  electricity  in  shrinking  world-distances, 
and  steam  in  linking  all  the  continents ;  the  investment 
of  the  concentrated  wealth,  power,  and  learning  of  the 
world  in  the  hands  of  Christendom  and  of  the  Church  of 
God ;  its  ascendant  dignity  and  transforming  power — all 
combine  to  press  the  fullilling  of  the  great  commission  of 
the  Christ,  and  the  hastening  of  the  coming  of  the  City 
of  God. 

Signs  of  the  Morning. — Surely  the  long  night  of 
pagan  gloom  is  about  to  break.  All  about  us  are  signals 
of  the  morning.  As  the  mists  are  passing  away,  the 
vistas  are  illuminant  with  the  grand  and  awful 
beauty  of  the  hour.  One  l^y  one,  the  cold  and  far- 
away lesser  lights  that  ruled  the  night  are  yielding 
to  the  warmer  tints  of  a  new  day.  The  whole 
spectacle  is  beautifully  impressive.  All  over  the  Far 
East  is  felt  the  flush  of  that  new  spiritual  radio-energy 
which  is  the  direct  product  of  a  century's  evangelisation 
in  its  largest  mission  fields.  It  has  produced  "  such 
a  light  as  never  shone  on  land  or  sea." 

Is  it  not  an  impressive  fact  that  seventy  generations 
of  men  have  passed  away  since  His  star  first  shone  in  the 
Oriental  sky  ?  Two  millenniums  have  passed  into  history 
since  the  wise  men  from  the  Persian  and  Chaldean 
observatories  appeared  at  the  gates  of  the  Judean 
capital    with    their   pregnant    inquiry  :    "  Where   is    He 


THE  STAR  IN  THE  WEST  127 

that  is  born  King  of  the  Jews  ?  for  we  have  seen,  in 
the  East,  His  star,  and  are  come  to  worship  llini."  ^  It 
is  a  long  stretch  of  history  from  Eden  to  Betlilelieni, 
and  tlien  from  Jerusalem  on  to  the  twentieth  century ; 
and  even  yet  the  complete  carrying  out  of  the  regal 
conmiission  is  lagging.  Such  a  condition  has  led 
many  thinking  souls  in  the  Far  East  to  doubt  our 
own  belief  in  the  paramountcy  of  this  claimed  universal 
and  abiding  religion. 

Would  that  it  might  be  true  at  this  unprecedented 
hour  of  ojjportunity  that  the  churches  at  home  were 
awake  to  the  tremendous  urgency  of  their  trust  powers 
as  stewards  of  the  manifold  grace  of  God  ! 

If  there  were  only  an  enlightened  ctmsciencc  on  the 
grandeur  and  greatness  of  the  work  that  is  being  done, 
an  a])preciatiou  of  the  colossal  programme  before  the 
world's  mission  fields,  a  recognition  of  the  higli  intellectual 
and  spiritual  calibre  of  the  missionary  body,  a  rational 
conception  of  the  splendid  achievements  which  have  been 
brought  about  by  the  irreducible  minimum  of  gifts  and 
expenditure  of  trust  monies  ;  if  the  Church  only  knew 
these  things,  and  felt  these  things,  and  had  travail  of 
soul  for  its  common  Lord — seeing  the  great  whitening 
fields  of  ripening  harvests,  it  would  soon  wish  to  share 
the  agony  of  the  Master  for  the  souls  of  men ;  and  the 
missionaries,  thus  nerved  and  inspired  to  greater  heroisms, 
would  begin  to  do  exploits  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ. 

^  The  reading  of  the  Sinai  Paliiniwest  iu  Matt.  ii.  2,  "For  we  have 
seen  His  star  from  the  East,"  seems  to  solve  a  real  difficulty.  From  the 
Chaldeau  plains,  or  in  Persia,  the  Magi  must  have  seen  the  star  to  the 
west  of  them  en  route  to  Bethlehem.  It  suggests  the  words  iv  t^  dfaroXfj 
as  having  reference  to  the  wise  men,  and  not  to  the  star.  Such  authori- 
ties as  Dr.  Adolf  Deissmaim,  Dr.  J.  H.  Moulton,  and  Agnes  Smith  Lewis, 
D.D.,  LL.D,,  Phil. Dr.,  Cambridge,  are  in  harmony  with  this  theory. 


128    THE  CHURCH  LOYAL  AND  POWERFUL 

Missions  are  not  a  mere  phase  of  Christianity.  They 
are  Christianity  itself.  They  are  the  Church's  greatest 
enterprise.  They  are  her  chief  concern  and  her  marching 
orders.  They  constitute  the  last  and  fullest  command  of 
our  now  risen  and  glorified  Lord,  which  is  irrevocable, 
inexorable,  and  supreme. 


IX 

THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 


H.U.S.  129 


"  God  only  knows  what  the  next  five  years  have  in  store.  But 
no  surer  means  lies  ready  to  our  hand  with  which  to  move  the 
great  nation  from  centre  to  circumference  with  God's  great  thoughts 
than  the  Printed  Page  !  " — Rev.  J.  C.  Garritt,  D.D. 

"  "Wliich  in  other  ages  was  not  made  known  unto  the  sons  of 
men.  .  ,  .  That  the  nations  should  be  .  .  .  partakers  of  His 
promise  in  Christ  by  the  gospel.  ...  To  the  intent  that  now  unto 
the  principalities  and  powers  in  heavenly  places  might  be  known 
by  the  Church  the  manifold  wisdom  of  God." — St.  Paul, 

"  It  is  not,  I  suppose,  possible  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of 
the  new  developments  in  Chinese  educational  aspiration.  We 
cannot  tell  how  long,  amid  the  changes  and  chances  of  human 
affairs,  the  present  opportunity  and  the  present  welcome  will  be 
ours." — The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 


IX 

THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 

What  a  vision  of  the  meaning  of  that  Eternal  purpose 
ilhiniined  the  life,  and  shed  even  at  his  death  a  halo  of 
light  upon  the  great  Apostle  Paul !  See  him  as  he 
writes  with  the  light  of  an  Italian  sun  streaming 
through  the  chinks  of  barred  windows  in  his  prison- 
house  in  the  Eternal  City.  His  face  is  Ht  with  a  glory 
which  is  only  reflected  on  the  faces  of  the  pure  in  heart 
who  have  seen  God.  His  prison-house  may  be  cold  and 
lone,  but  the  fire  of  God  is  ignited  within  him.  With 
a  face  lined  with  toil  and  pain,  chiselled  with  arduous 
labours,  his  hair  bleached  with  long  service,  his  heart 
attuned  to  minor  keys  of  pain  as  well  as  to  paeans  of 
victory,  his  will  indomitable,  and  his  faith  clear  as  the 
morning — such  an  one  has  "  the  strength  of  ten,  because 
his  heart  is  pure." 

He  is  writing  a  letter — a  love  epistle — to  the  church 
of  his  affections  in  Philippi.  It  is  written  with  intense 
pathos  and  under  the  shadow  of  accepted  death.  Over 
the  seas  and  mountains  and  great  commercial  highways 
he  looks  in  faith  to  the  church  by  the  shores  of  the 
Adriatic  Sea.  His  thoughts  are  with  the  church  by  the 
riverside.  It  was  one  of  the  first  missionary  churches 
founded  on  the  continent  of  Europe.     This  church  was 


131 


132        THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 

numerically  and  jfinancially  small,  but  it  was  great  in 
conspicuous  service.  It  abounded  in  "  this  grace  also  " 
— it  ministered  to  his  needs  and  sufferings. 

The  exordium  in  this  address  is  rich  with  praise.  "  I 
thank  my  God  upon  every  remembrance  of  you,  always 
in  every  prayer  of  mine  for  you,  making  request  with  joy 
for  your  fellowship  in  the  gospel  from  the  first  day  until 
now." 

It  was  a  beautiful  tribute.  It  spoke  of  their  high 
conception  of  the  Christian  life  and  the  service  of  its 
accepted  stewardship,  as  well  as  of  the  continuity  of  its 
service,  prayer,  and  fellowship.  In  every  tremulous  line 
there  is  heart-break  and  the  touch  of  tears.  The  Apostle 
had  fought  a  good  fight,  and  was  looking  for  the 
signal  to  depart. 

Oh  for  such  a  fellowship  with  the  home  churches  !  Oh 
for  such  a  relationship  on  the  part  of  the  home  churches 
with  our  lonely  and  scattered  missionaries  in  the  far- 
away nightlands  where  men  have  not  beheld  His  glory  ! 

The  Sign  of  the  Cross. — Calvary's  stage  is  the 
world ;  and  its  date,  and  programme,  all  time.  There 
was  only  one  great  missionary  society  ever  chartered  and 
commissioned  by  our  blessed  Lord  for  the  discipling  of 
the  nations,  and  that  was  His  own  Apostolic  Church. 
The  master-passion  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  His 
cowpassion.  He  sanctified,  and  blessed,  and  empowered 
His  followers  to  seek  and  to  save  the  lost.  We  are  there- 
fore the  heirs,  executors,  administrators,  and  assigns  of 
His  last  will  and  testament.  Ours  is  a  perpetual  com- 
mission. He  sealed  it  with  the  crimson  sign  of  His 
sacrificial  Cross ;  and  the  Church  has — wherever  she  has 
been  fruitful — worn  that  crucifixion  mark  ever  since.  It 
is  only  when  the  Church  has  had  in  the  great  battlefields 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SIGN  133 

of  missionary  conflict  "the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus" 
upon  her,  that  the  blessed  fulfilment  of  the  "  presence 
alway,"  and  its  ever-accompanying  power  and  benedic- 
tion, have  been  with  it  in  saving  power  and  redeeming 
grace. 

Ever  and  always  the  work  of  redemption  is  a  really 
sacrificial  service.  This  principle  was  enunciated  from 
the  very  inception  and  cradle  of  Christianity.  When 
worldly  honours  or  state  assistance  or  regal  thrones  were 
offered  the  Church,  both  Jesus  and  His  Apostles  dis- 
countenanced any  such  political  aid  or  temporal  govern- 
ment. Let  the  cultured  Greeks  seek  audience  with 
Christ  and  invite  Him  to  their  realms,  and  the  Master 
lifts  up  a  Cross,  and  teaches  the  lesson  of  the  kernel 
of  wheat  dying  in  the  fertilising  soil  of  sacrifice  to  reach 
a  larger,  more  fruitful,  and  more  abundant  life. 

The  great  French  preacher,  La  Cordaire,  said :  "  The 
Church  was  born  crucified."  In  this  same  spiritual 
heroism,  Mazzini  writes :  "  This  word  demands  my  life- 
blood."  "What  a  demonstration,  too,  is  in  that  potent 
fact  that  in  all  His  holy  ministry  our  blessed  Lord  lifted 
up  a  life,  and  not  a  mere  creed  or  a  tenet  of  a  religion. 
This,  too,  is  just  where  the  great  contrast  is  best  seen. 
Look  at  the  symbols,  signs,  and  emblems  of  the  non- 
Christian  faiths  of  the  world.  Here  they  are  in  a  few 
brief  sentences : 

The  star  and  crescent  represent  Mahomet. 

The  ancestral  tablet  represents  Confucius. 

The  revolving  wheel  represents  Buddhism. 

The  sun  and  moon  and  stars  represent  Parseeism. 

The  wooden  crucifix  represents  Eome. 

The  Greatest  "  If  "  in  the  World.— They  all  lift  up 
a  cold  and  lifeless  image,  in  striking  contrast  to  which 


134        THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 

our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  lifts  up  a  life.  "  Aud  I,  if  I  be 
lifted  up  " — we  have  purposely  written  the  if  in  italics, 
and  the  thought  is  not  without  significance  that  there 
may  have  been  in  the  heart  of  our  Lord  a  pang  when 
that  hypothesis  and  provisional  "  if  "  was  uttered.  Was 
it  a  momentary  wringing  of  the  heart  with  sorrow  in 
the  thought,  as  He  looked  across  the  centuries,  that  per- 
haps in  the  flush  of  its  accepted  power  and  'prestige,  and 
amid  the  glamour  of  its  wealth,  other  things  might  be 
lifted  up  ?  And,  oh,  has  it  not  been  sadly  so  ?  We 
have  given  other  things  the  pre-eminence,  and  have  almost 
forgotten  that  the  magnetic,  attractive,  sympathising 
Christ  is  still  able  to  draw  all  men  unto  Him. 

History  teaches  that  failures  precede  reconstruction, 
and  that  they  are  often  the  birth -liours  of  new  discoveries. 
It  is  so  in  all  the  crises  of  life.  At  a  psychological 
moment  someone  announces  a  "  new  theology."  It  is 
weighed  in  the  balances  and  found  wanting.  In  itself, 
it  is  proved  to  be  an  absolute  failure ;  but  it  started  into 
expression  the  deeper  conviction  in  many  minds  that 
what  was  needed  was  not  a  new  theology  but  a  "  new 
creation." 

The  Apostle  Paul,  with  discriminating  spiritual  dis- 
cernment, met  these  conditions  in  the  early  days  of 
Christianity.  In  his  Epistles  to  the  churches  at  Eome, 
Corinth,  and  Galatia  he  emphasises  that  grand  truth 
enunciated  by  our  Divine  Lord  in  His  conversation  with 
the  learned  Nicodemus. 

When  the  soul  is  "  born  from  above,"  then  there  is 
"  newness  of  life  " ;  and  when  "  any  man  is  in  Christ,"  he 
is  a  "  new  creature."  When  the  Church  of  Christ,  in  its 
corporate  and  individual  life,  becomes  a  "  new  creation," 
it  will  experience  some  glad  surprises  in  the  execution 


136 


For  the  Reception  of  "Unwelcome  Babies" 

in  China 

The  hole  in  the  wall  is  the  door  through  which  the  children 
are  placed.  Neither  the  face  of  the  mother  nor  the  receiver 
of  the  babe  can  be  seen  by  each  other.  Hence  there  is  no 
identity.  Once  in,  the  child  slips  down  on  a  sliding  shelf 
and  is  the  property  of  the  institution.  It  is  the  saddest 
commentary  on  homeless  heathendom. 


Waiting ! 

This  picture,  taken  by  Miss  Edna  P.  Dale  of  Wuhu,  China, 
shows  the  crowd  of  women  lining  up  to  the  gates  of  a 
building  known  as  a  heathen  nursing-home.  It  is  supported 
by  voluntary  contributions,  and  by  the  profits  of  its  stock- 
in-trade.  The  children  are  nursed  and  nourished  by  poor 
peasant  women,  who  take  the  children  to  their  homes  and 
receive  a  small  sum  each  month  on  bringing  the  child  back 
again  so  that  those  in  charge  may  see  if  it  is  sufficiently 
nourished. 


"WHO  WILL  GO  FOR  US?"  137 

of  its  heaven-commissioned  and  world-embracing  service 
of  discipling  the  nations. 

Nota  Bene! — The  real  vocation  of  the  Church  is 
its  missionary  evangelisation.  In  the  light  of  these  facts 
the  homeland  churches  are  b\it  the  garrisons  and  the 
transport  departments.  It  is  generally  admitted  that 
the  position  of  an  ambassador  abroad  demands  a 
better  equipment  than  an  early  appointment  in  the 
Civil  service  at  home.  It  is  equally  true  of  the  great 
mission  fields,  as  well  as  of  diplomatic  and  government 
appointments.  England  sends  her  most  etticient  leaders 
to  our  colonies,  and  entrusts  the  viceroyalty  of  India — 
the  richest  gem  in  the  Empire's  crown — to  the  greatest 
of  her  governing  statesmen.  The  reasons  for  this  are 
apparent.  Quality  rather  than  quantity  is  the  indis- 
pensable requisite.  Only  those  of  the  highest  spiritual 
and  intellectual  qualifications  should  be  sent  out.  Of 
course,  these  essentials  may  not  always  be  combined,  but 
they  are  vital.  The  Apostolic  Church  set  apart  and 
ordained  some  of  its  ablest  men  for  its  aggressive 
Kingdom-building.  Surely  an  enterprise  so  colossal,  so 
grand,  so  far-reaching,  so  Divine,  so  great  in  its  ever- 
widening  programme,  calls  for  the  choicest  and  picked 
men  and  women  to  be  efficiently  equipped  as  well  as 
truly  endowed.  Professor  Warneck  is  right  in  pointing 
out  that  mere  numbers  of  missionaries  afford  no  sure 
guarantee  of  desired  results.  Well  has  Professor  Legge 
urged  that  "  missionaries  ought  to  be  the  foremost  men 
whom  the  Christian  Church  possesses ;  tlie  men  who 
have  intermeddled  most  with,  and  gone  deepest  into  all 
knowledge  ;  whose  intellectual  resources  are  the  largest ; 
whose  practical  and  persuasive  ability  is  the  finest,  and 
whose  temper  is  the  most  under  their  control ;  the  most 

H.U.S,  s 


138        THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 

fervent  in    spirit,  the    largest   in    mind,  and   the    most 
capable  in  action." 

Then  there  is  another  phase  of  this  soul-stirring 
service  of  carrying  the  Gospel  unto  the  nations.  It  is 
the  reflex  influence  for  good  on  the  home  fields. 
Churches  that  have  their  representative  missionaries 
in  heathen  lands  have  returned  unto  them  in  double 
measure  the  gifts  and  offerings  laid  at  His  shrine. 
Churches  that  are  missionary  in  spirit  and  in  life  are  the 
churches  that  are  alive  in  every  other  good  work.  Some 
churches  have  a  chronic  insular  selfishness  so  incurably 
fastened  upon  them  as  to  disable  them  from  all  worthy 
participation  in  the  Saviour's  plan  of  redeeming  the 
world.  The  "  colossal  egoism  "  of  such  a  church  enables 
it  to  see  nothing  greater  or  smaller  than  itself.  A 
non-missionary  church  is  an  anomaly.  It  is  like  a 
dead  dynamo.  It  has  not  heat,  or  light,  or  power 
to  suffuse  or  move.  It  is  as  a  lighthouse  with  its 
windows  darkened,  and  becomes  an  awful  peril  rather 
than  like  a  guiding  star.  It  is  as  a  ship  without  a  rudder, 
or  a  port  of  destination,  and  as  such  is  as  a  mere 
eofiin  to  its  passengers  and  its  crew.  Churches  that  are 
the  first  to  give  out  are  the  last  to  give  up.  They 
abound  in  grace  and  fruition.  Churches  that  are 
missionary  churches  are  clear  in  their  testimony  to  the 
world.  Their  lungs  and  hearts  perform  the  functions 
of  breathing  and  of  circulation.  To  make  the  illus- 
tration as  simple  as  it  is  clear,  it  is  as  if  water 
should  cease  to  flow,  blood  cease  to  circulate,  light 
cease  to  shine ;  and  the  alternatives  are  inexorable  and 
terribly  exacting — water  that  does  not  run,  stagnates ; 
blood  must  circulate  or  Hfe  must  terminate ;  light 
must   either    shine   or    decline :    and    missions    that    do 


PRAYER  AND  SERVICE  139 

not  send  must  end — this  law  is  axiomatic,  scientific, 
final. 

A  Working  Church. — The  missionary  church  is  a 
working  church.  "What  an  added  force  is  given  to  a 
church  where  its  members  are  personally  realising  their 
responsibility,  and  act  upon  it  with  grace  and  enthusi- 
asm !  What  fructifying  agencies  grow  up  in  all  its  varied 
departments  of  service !  Spiritual  vision  is  enlarged. 
What  a  prayer-meeting  such  a  church  enjoys  !  The  thrill 
of  partnership  is  experienced,  and  service  so  given  is  a 
perpetual  benediction.  There  is  macliinery  enough,  and 
there  are  wheels  enough  in  the  Church ;  what  is  needed 
is  that  the  Church  shall  respond  to  the  call  of  God,  and 
then  will  the  Holy  Spirit  move  within  the  wheels.  It  is 
a  worthy  cause,  and  one  which  demands  a  frank,  united, 
systematic,  heroic,  and  worthy  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
whole  Church,  each  body  of  churches  giving  liberally  and 
heroically  to  its  respective  Missionary  Societies  and 
Boards.  There  is  simply  no  end  to  what  might  be 
accomplished  if  the  Church — unitedly — gave  herself  to 
this  supreme  and  paramount  service. 

A  Praying  Church. — The  missionary  church  is  a 
praying  church.  The  whole  history  of  missions  is  a 
record  of  the  achieving  power  of  believing  prayer.  A 
prayerless  church  is  an  orphan  church.  Some  churches 
have  discovered  the  coastline  of  continents  of  achieve- 
ment, blessing,  and  power  by  the  exercise  of  intercessory 
prayer.  Mr.  John  E.  Mott,  M.A.,  F.E.G.S.,  the  General 
Secretary  of  the  World's  Student  Christian  Federation, 
says : 

"  Everything  vital  to  the  success  of  the  world's  evangel- 
isation hinges  on  prayer.  Are  thousands  of  missionaries 
and  tens  of  thousands  of  native  workers  needed  ?     '  Pray 


I40        THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 

ye  therefore  the  Lord  of  the  harvest,  that  He  send  forth 
labourers  into  His  harvest.'  Is  a  vast  increase  in  gifts 
required  to  adequately  prosecute  the  enterprise  ?  Prayer 
is  the  only  power  that  will  influence  God's  people  to 
give  with  purity  of  motive  and  with  real  sacrifice  of 
self.  Prayer  alone  will  overcome  the  gigantic  difficulties 
which  confront  the  workers  in  every  field.  Nothing  but 
prayer  will  strengthen  the  weak,  tried,  and  tempted 
native  Christians  who  have  been  raised  up  from  lives 
of  sin  and  degradation,  and  give  them  the  evangelistic 
impulse.  It  is  in  answer  to  prayer  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  poured  out  in  mighty  Pentecostal  power  on  the  workers 
and  Christian  communities  in  the  far-off,  needy  fields." 

What  a  hidden  and  omnipotent  force  is  here  at  the 
disposal  of  the  Church  when  she  is  ready  and  able 
to  appropriate  the  magnificent  resources  that  are  her 
own  inheritance ! 

There  is  a  note  of  touching  pathos  expressed  in  the 
following  little  poem,  originally  written  in  Persian,  in 
one  of  tlie  books  of  the  songs  of  Jaffer.  Its  application 
is  easily  understood : 

"I  know  of  a  land  that  knows  a  lord 

That's  neither  brave  nor  true  ; 
But  I  know  of  a  sword,  a  sword,  a  sword 

Can  cut  a  chain  in  two. 
Its  edge  is  sharp  and  its  blade  is  broad  ; 
I  kjiow  of  a  sword,  a  sworJ,  a  sword 

Will  cut  a  chain  in  two. 

"I  know  of  a  laud  that's  sunk  in  shame, 

"Where  true  hearts  faint  and  tire. 
And  I  know  of  a  name,  a  name,  a  name 

Can  set  that  land  on  fire. 
Its  sound  is  a  blast,  its  letters  a   llame  ; 
I  know  of  a  name,  a  name,  a  name 

Will  set  that  land  on  fire. 


THE  MASTER  TEMPTATION  141 

"I  know  of  hearts  that  hate  the  wrong, 

That  still  are  leal  and  true  ; 
And  I  know  of  a  song,  a  song,  a  song 

Can  break  a  fetter  tlirough. 
Oh,  you  who  long,  and  long,  and  long, 
I'll  give  you  a  song,  a  song,  a  song  ; 

'Twill  break  your  fetters  through  ! " 

That  laud  is  the  nightland  of  heathendom.  The 
sword  is  the  sword  of  the  Spirit — the  Word  of  God. 
The  name  is  the  only  name,  Jesus,  given  among  men 
whereby  they  can  be  saved.  The  song  is  the  conquering 
song  of  victory  over  sin  and  death. 

Dr.  Henry  C.  Mabie,  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the 
American  Baptist  Missionary  Union,  writes  thus  upon 
the  subject : 

"  I  have  no  hesitation  in  insisting  upon  the  universal 
duty  in  Christendom  everywhere  of  immediate  appli- 
cation, without  reserve,  of  all  our  powers  to  the 
evangehsation  of  the  whole  world.  Certainly,  all  will 
agree  that  tlie  duty  of  eacli  generation  to  its  generation 
is  imperative  and  universal.  The  surprises  of  grace,  the 
miracles  of  converting  power,  the  rapid  triumphs  of  the 
Gospel,  would  astonish  the  whole  earth  if  God  were  really 
put  to  the  test.  The  master  temptation  of  the  devil  is  to 
seciu'e  procrastination  on  the  part  of  the  Church  respect- 
ing the  world's  evangelisation.  Of  course,  this  temptation 
should  be  resisted  at  every  point :  and  if  it  were,  nations 
would  soon  be  born  in  a  day." 

Is  the  Church  Ready  ? — Is  the  Church  prepared  for 
this  grand  action  ?  The  times  are  significaut  of  great 
world  movements.  The  social  and  spiritual  solidarity  of 
the  Far  East  are  clarion  calls  to  the  Church  to  rise, 
and  guide,  and  save. 

The  need  is  vital  and  imperative.     The  opportunities 


142        THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 

are  rare  and  are  passing  away.  It  is  the  nick  of  time 
to  co-operate  with  God.  The  vast  heathen  world  is  at 
unrest,  and  at  a  fever-point  of  expectancy.  The  people 
are  again  greeting  the  Messiah,  and  seeking  audience 
with  Him.  Their  young  men  and  women  are  turning 
in  thousands  from  the  dark  delusions  of  "  lights  that 
have  failed  "  to  the  sure  clear  shining  of  His  star.  The 
faiths  of  heathendom  are  undermined  and  are  crumbling 
away.  They  stand  like  great  vessels,  anchored  in  the 
stream — the  currents  of  time  flow  past  them,  and  each 
year  they  are  farther  behind  the  spirit  of  the  age  and 
less  in  harmony  with  its  demands. 

Shall  not  the  crowning  command  of  our  now  risen 
and  glorified  Lord,  linked  with  the  dynamic  "  all  power  " 
and  the  "  all  authority,"  be  the  crowning  mission  of  the 
Church  ?  Such  a  united  action  would — as  it  is  proving 
to-day — heal  its  divisions,  sanctify  its  spirit,  utilise  its 
power,  trade  its  talents,  enlarge  its  stewardship,  and 
glorify  its  evangelism.  The  cry  of  John  Wesley,  "  My 
parish  is  the  world,"  should  be  the  cry  of  every  disciple. 
It  would  mean  such  a  vision  of  the  world's  great  need, 
and  the  awful  reality  of  the  fact  that  two  millenniums 
after  our  Lord's  great  commission  there  are  1,000,000,000 
of  heathen  who  are  still  in  the  darkness  of  the  shadow  of 
death!  At  the  present  census  rate  of  500,000,000  of 
Christian  peoples,  this  means  that  each  Christian  would 
have  to  evangelise  but  two,  and  the  work  would  be  done. 

Until  some  great  persecution  comes  upon  the  Church, 
some  "  dark  ages,"  some  period  of  soul  -  petrifying 
callosity  of  heart  and  mind,  some  great  falling  away 
from  the  faith — and  are  we  not  witnessing  such  to- 
day ? — the  Church  will  not  be  lifted  out  of  itself !  Who 
can  tell  what  will  be  the  awakening  trumpet  to  call  the 


A  SUDDEN  CONSUMMATION  143 

Church  to  prayer  and  to  the  catching  of  a  new  vision 
of  Calvary  ?  Such  an  experience  would  mean  and  spell 
out  a  new  preparation,  new  prayer,  a  new  Pentecost ;  and 
its  resultant  larger  plan,  deeper  purposes,  and  highest 
power. 

Joseph  Cook  said  :  "  World-wide  evangelism  is  the 
crowning  glory  of  the  Church." 

The  words  of  Dr.  Eichard  S.  Storrs  impressively 
suggest  the  likeness  of  our  own  generation  to  the 
Apostolic  Age,  as  a  time  for  world-wide  preaching  of  the 
Gospel : 

"  I  cannot  think  it  exaggeration  to  say,  in  view  of  the 
changes  thus  occurring  during  the  century,  that  the 
astonishing  preparation  of  the  world  for  the  first  pro- 
clamation of  the  Master  in  it  is  now  followed,  if  not 
surpassed,  by  a  majestic  preparation  of  mankind  for  such 
a  testimony  to  be  given  to  Him  as  hitherto  no  dream  of 
the  heart  has  imagined  to  be  possible.  .  .  .  The  mar- 
vellous secular  progress  of  mankind  in  the  last  eighty 
years,  the  unexpected  advancements  or  recessions  of 
states,  with  the  closer  connections  arising  between  them, 
and  the  opening  of  all  lands  to  the  moral  forces  dominant 
in  Christendom — these  give  an  equally  majestic  oppor- 
tunity, in  our  time,  for  the  furthest  and  swiftest 
exhibition  of  Him  in  whom  the  world  has  its  help  and 
its  hope.  Gradual  preparation,  ultimating  in  sudden 
consummation,  is  often  God's  method  in  history.  It 
was  so  before  the  coming  of  the  Master.  It  was  so 
before  the  conversion  of  the  Empire.  It  was  so,  signally, 
before  the  Reformation.     It  seems  to  be  so  in  our  day." 

The  Brave  and  Advancing  Minority. — In  the  pre- 
sent highly  rarefied  atmosphere,  some  of  the  clearest 
observations  of  the  field  are  being  made.     The  mists  are 


144        THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 

passing  away.  Young  China,  and  young  Japan,  and  young 
Korea  are  moving  out  of  their  cloud-world  of  fancy  on 
to  the  terra  firma  of  the  certainties,  realities,  and  privi- 
leges, as  well  as  the  responsibilities  of  the  Christian  life 
and  faith.  From  the  watch-towers  all  over  Asia — in  far- 
away Thibet,  Mongolia,  Manchuria,  on  the  steppes  of  the 
Himalayas,  across  the  immense  Chinese  plains,  and  on 
to  Korea,  and  sunny  Japan — the  bugle  blast  is  clear 
and  loud  that  the  morning  cometh  ! 

Although  the  redeemed  element  is  still  the  brave  and 
advancing  minority,  they  are  among  literati  and  merchant 
alike  their  brightest  hope.  The  displacement  of  heathen- 
ism has  called  for  new  hopes  and  new  ideals. 

In  its  advocacy  of  pure  literature  and  the  science  of 
healing,  its  advances  in  mechanical  arts,  its  conveniences 
of  life,  its  political  improvements,  its  aid  in  international 
comity,  its  cheer  in  the  struggles  of  life,  its  exaltation 
of  home  and  motherhood ;  in  its  fruits  of  righteousness, 
peace,  purity,  and  everlasting  hope  in  the  hearts  of  men 
and  women,  who  had  almost  doubted  their  own  humanity 
or  Divine  relationships  ;  by  its  superiority  in  the  mastery 
of  the  leading  nations  of  the  earth — the  argument  is 
massed,  challenged,  and  made  invincible,  that  it  is  the 
faith  and  action  of  Jesus  Christ  and  His  Apostles  that 
has  proved  itself  able  not  only  to  reform  but  to  re- 
generate the  whole  human  race. 

When  one  of  our  greatest  missionaries,  David  Hill, 
lay  dying  in  the  heart  of  China,  he  said  with  almost 
his  last  breath :  "  We  want  more  of  the  Spirit's  power. 
We  can  do  nothing  without  that." 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  key  to  the  future  of 
China,  Japan,  and  Korea  is  in  the  attitude  of  the 
choicest  students  in  our  Christian  colleges  in  those  lands. 


THE  STUDENT  PROBLEM  145 

Japan  is  leading  the  Orient — whither  ?  With  its  daring 
clnvahy,  its  intense  loyalty,  its  national  sohdarity,  and 
with  its  eyes  and  mind  open  toward  enlightenment,  it 
may  lead  the  Asian  continent  into  the  light  and  truth 
of  a  new  era. 

Fletcher  S.  Brockman,  B.A.,  the  General  Secretary  of 
the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations  of  China,  Japan, 
and  Korea,  whose  splendid  service  and  experience  make 
weighty  his  testimony,  writes : 

"  The  importance  of  the  work  cannot  be  over-estimated. 
These  students  come  largely  from  the  wealthiest  and 
most  influential  families  of  the  Empire.  Every  province 
of  China  and  Manchuria  is  represented.  The  returned 
students  from  Japan  are  in  complete  control  of  affairs. 
They  will  soon  be  in  control  of  the  Government  itself. 
They  are  in  the  ascendant  in  the  colleges  and  universities. 
Simply  to  make  a  favourable  impression  upon  them  for 
Christianity  will  pave  the  way  for  all  missionary  work 
during  the  next  fifty  years,  and  make  immeasurably 
easier  the  progress  of  the  Christian  Church.  If  nothing 
can  be  done  for  them,  on  the  other  hand,  they  will 
saturate  China  with  materialistic  and  anti- Christian 
ideas — not  to  say,  what  is  often  the  case,  revolutionary 
and  anarchistic  ideas.  When  one  understands  the 
strategic  importance  of  these  men,  it  does  not  seem 
strange  that  a  man  like  Dr.  Arthur  Smith  should  have 
said  recently  in  a  public  address,  before  a  large  body  of 
missionaries  in  Kuling,  China,  that  it  was  possible  for 
the  young  men  who  were  connected  with  the  great 
student  enterprise  in  Tokio,  to  do  more  during  this  next 
year  than  all  the  rest  of  the  missionaries  in  China  put 
together." 

A  Strategic  Moment. — The  present  strategic  moment 

H.U.S.  T 


146       THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 

should  be  seized  and  utilised.  It  is  a  golden  oppor- 
tunity. To-day  it  is  ours.  To-morrow  it  may  have 
passed  away.  In  the  great  awakening  that  has  come 
to  the  Far  East  there  are  also  grave  perils.  These 
notes  of  warning  and  of  appeal  were  sounded  forth  at 
the  recent  United  Centenary  Meeting  of  Protestant 
Missions  in  China,  held  in  the  Eoyal  Albert  Hall. 
The  situation  was  summed  up  by  the  Eev.  Dr.  Wardlaw 
Thompson  (Secretary  of  the  London  Missionary  Society) : 

"The  Chinese  want  education.  They  will  get  it, 
whether  we  of  the  missionary  associations  give  it  them 
or  not.  China  is  not  wanting  our  Christianity,  except 
in  some  cases.  What  it  wants  to  do  is  to  learn  the 
secret  that  has  made  Western  nations  strong  in  the 
■world — things  to  make  them  equal  in  their  manufactures, 
things  to  make  them  strong  to  defend  themselves  against 
us  in  war. 

"  But  what  is  that  to  give  to  China,  if  we  are  going 
to  destroy  the  ethical  system  which  the  Chinese  had  in 
the  beginning  ?  If  we  are  going  to  let  China  have  the 
benefits  of  all  the  other  system  without  Christianity, 
woe  betide  us ! 

"We  shall  be  raising  up  a  dragon  in  the  world  of 
portentous  size  and  strength.  We  shall  have  a  com- 
petitor in  the  world  without  scruple,  without  conscience. 
Therefore  the  responsibility  of  the  Christian  Church  at 
the  present  time  is  a  tremendous  one.  We  can  give  to 
China,  more  than  any  other  nation,  those  things  that 
China  wants  to  learn.  We  have  got  to  give  China  those 
things  which  have  really  made  us  great — those  great 
spiritual  truths,  which  are  life  and  light  in  Jesus  Christ." 

The  mind  of  the  Chinese,  which  has  been  lying  fallow 
for  centuries,  is  germinating  into  a  new  life.     It  suggests 


PASSING  OPPORTUNITIES  147 

the  thought  that  God  has,  iu  His  marvellous  wisdom, 
preserved  and  conserved  all  the  inherent,  accumulating, 
and  vital  powers  of  this  really  great  people  for  the 
consummation  of  some  splendid  achievements  in  harmony 
with  His  Divine  purposes. 

While  many  are  wondering  what  will  be  the  outcome 
in  the  theatre  of  strange  movements  being  played  in 
China,  Korea,  Japan,  and  Siam,  the  great  Christian 
organisations  are  awake  and  at  work. 

They  are  carefully  formulating  vast  schemes  for 
influencing  the  best  minds  and  through  them  the 
awakening  masses  in  all  classes  of  society.  The  situa- 
tion presents  both  a  revolution  and  an  opportunity. 
Ancient  temples  are  being  changed  into  schools  of  living 
ideas.  Heathen  extravagancies  in  idolatrous  processions 
are  being  prohibited.  Edicts  from  the  Imperial  throne 
announce  a  new  era.  There  is  a  rush  for  reform. 
The  new  telegraph  has  given  the  empire  a  new  nervous 
system,  and  railroads  are  now  the  gushing  arteries  of  its 
new  being. 

The  system  of  pubhc  examinations  which  had  been  in 
vogue  for  thirteen  centuries  has  been  abolished  with  a 
single  stroke  of  the  vermillion  pen  from  the  Imperial 
palace.  All  the  universities  and  new  colleges  are  full 
of  bright,  eager,  alert  students.  There  never  was  a  time 
when  they  were  more  susceptible  to  Christian  influences. 
If  the  Christian  Church  fails  to  meet  this  demand  with 
an  adequate  supply  of  the  best  Christian  teachers,  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  the  mind  of  the  nation  will  swing  to 
and  be  influenced  by  cold  materialistic  tendencies,  and 
result  in  a  mere  intellectual  conversion. 

A  Clarion  Call. — From  the  Great  Centenary  Con- 
ference in  Shanghai  comes  a  clarion  call  for  five  hundred 


148        THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 

of  the  best  men  that  the  universities  of  Europe  and 
America  can  send  out  as  a  first  instalment  to  occupy  the 
vast  number  of  educational  appointments  which  are  open 
to  us. 

The  needs  are  urgent,  imperative,  and  supreme.  The 
evangelisation  of  the  whole  empire  is  within  the  grasp 
of  the  Christian  Church.  It  is  the  oldest  and  greatest 
of  the  empires  of  antiquity,  and  the  immense  results  of 
its  conversion  will  be  commensurate  with  its  own  peculiar 
power  and  greatness. 

History  teaches  that  all  great  and  permanent  changes 
are  costly.  Nor  are  they  accomplished  in  a  hurry.  The 
transformation  of  such  an  immense  empire  with  all  its 
unplumbed  potentialities  may  be  the  crowning  miracle 
of  all  the  Christian  centuries. 

It  is  recorded  of  Chai  Yung,  one  of  the  Emperors  of 
the  Sung  dynasty,  that,  during  a  great  crisis  in  the 
history  of  the  State,  and  when  the  people  were  striving 
towards  higher  ideals,  he  caused  hundreds  of  idols  to 
be  melted  into  money,  and  then  sent  it  about  doing  good. 

It  is  the  time  for  the  Church  to  melt  her  myriad  idols 
of  extravagance  and  selfishness.  It  is  the  time  for 
sacrificial  gifts  in  men  and  means.  It  is  the  time  for 
prevailing  and  achieving  prayer.  It  is  a  magnificent 
opportunity  for  the  Church  to  achieve  its  grandest 
success,  and  secure  this  great,  rich,  and  worthy  gem 
among  the  empires,  and  in  adoration  cast  it  at  the  feet 
of  Him  who  redeemed  it  with  His  own  precious  blood  ; 
while  we  sing — 

"Come,  then,  and  added  to  Thy  many  crowns. 
Receive  yet  one,  as  radiant  as  the  rest, 
Due  to  Thy  last  and  most  effectual  work, 
Thy  word  fulfilled,  the  conquest  of  a  world." 


THE  DIVINE  LEVERAGE  149 

Archimedes  said  he  could  lift  the  world  if  he  had  a 
place  to  put  his  fulcrum.  The  world  needs  to  be  lifted. 
The  lifting  power  of  God  is  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  But 
is  it  uot  true  that  even  the  power  of  God  uses  both  the 
leverage  and  the  fulcrum  to  accomplish  its  best  results  ? 
The  manifold  wisdom  and  power  of  God  were  to  be  made 
known  by  the  individual  units  in  the  Church.  God 
works  through  and  by  means  of  regenerated  human  souls 
to  lift  the  world.  Spirit-guided  and  Spirit-filled  souls 
are  His  leverage.  When  these — the  "messsengers  of 
the  churches " — are  supported  by  the  fulcrum  of  the 
prayers  and  practical  help  of  those  at  home,  it  is  then 
that  the  world  is  lifted  out  of  its  moral  degradation  into 
the  spiritual  realm  of  God's  grace  and  truth. 

Wanted !  A  Missionary  Church. — The  New  Testa- 
ment knows  no  other  than  a  missionary  church.  The 
Epistles  teach  that  its  missionary  offerings,  like  a 
mirror,  reflected  its  real  life  and  character.  It  re- 
garded the  carrying  out  of  the  imperial  commission  as 
its  chief  concern.  Church  buildings,  government  and 
organisation  were  mere  incidents  beside  the  paramount 
work  of  discipling  the  nations.  This  was  the  Divine 
oxygen  that  put  hfe  and  strength  into  every  department 
of  the  apostolic  programme. 

The  same  principle  is  generative  of  the  same  results 
to-day.  The  churches  that  are  missionary  in  spirit  are 
the  churches  that  are  winning  souls.  They  enter  into 
the  joys  of  partnership  with  Christ  in  service.  Their 
prayer-power  is  still  able  to  remove  mountains.  They 
have  learned  the  secret  of  a  sacrificial  and  consequently 
fruitful  life.  Such  a  church  is  like  a  tree  planted  by  the 
river  of  God ;  its  leaves  do  not  wither,  its  centre  of  life 
grows    stronger  as  its    branches    reach  out,  and  in  the 


ISO       THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 

fervent  atmosphere  of  sacrifice  it  ripens  into  fruition  all 
the  Christian  graces. 

There  is  a  very  beautiful  story  told  of  an  artist  who 
was  once  asked  to  paint  a  picture  of  a  decaying  church. 
To  the  astonishment  of  many,  instead  of  putting  on 
the  canvas  an  old,  tottering  ruin,  the  artist  painted 
a  stately  edifice  of  modern  grandeur.  Through  the 
open  portals  could  be  seen  the  richly  carved  pulpit, 
the  magnificent  organ,  and  the  beautiful  stained-glass 
windows. 

Within  the  grand  entrance,  guarded  on  either  side  by  a 
"  pillar  of  the  church  "  in  spotless  apparel  and  glittering 
jewellery,  was  an  offering-plate  of  elaborate  design,  for  the 
"  offerings  "  of  fashionable  worshippers.  But — and  here 
the  artist's  conception  of  a  decaying  church  was  made 
known — right  above  the  ofiering-plate,  suspended  from  a 
nail  in  the  wall,  there  hung  a  square  box,  very  simply 
painted,  and  bearing  the  legend,  "  Collection  for  Foreign 
Missions,"  but  right  over  the  slot,  through  which  certain 
contributions  ought  to  have  gone,  he  had  painted  a  huge 
cobweb  ! 

The  same  is  true  of  our  individual  Christian  life.  We 
live  only  as  we  grow,  and  we  grow  only  as  we  use  our 
talents.  The  measure  of  our  personal  responsibility  to 
Christ  is  the  measure  of  our  individual  endowments. 
Only  the  self-emptied  servant  knows  the  secret  of  that 
blessed  relationship  which  finds  it  more  blessed  to  give 
than  to  receive. 

From  out  of  our  universities  and  business  colleges 
there  are  being  drafted  with  feverish  haste  the  sonS'.and 
daughters  of  our  homeland  to  accept  positions  of  trust  in 
diplomatic  and  commercial  service.  They  are  willingly 
given    up    and    sent    out    on    the    cold    calculation    of 


THE  SUPREME  QUESTION  151 

lucrative    advancement.     There    is    little  or  no  talk  of 
sacrifice.     They  are  overwhelmed  with  congratulations. 

Before  the  Church,  to-day,  stands  the  Saviour,  pointing 
with  His  pierced  hands  to  the  Cross — the  sacrificial  sign 
and  emblem  of  the  redemption  of  the  race — and  He  is 
calling  for  witnesses.  "  Also  I  heard  the  voice  of  the 
Lord,  saying,  whom  shall  I  send,  and  who  will  go  for  us  ? 
Then  said  I,  Here  am  I ;  send  me." 

To  the  great  and  whitening  harvest  fields  of  missions 
in  Asia — the  awakening  continent — how  few  are  offering 
themselves  foi'  service  !  In  earlier  parts  of  this  work  we 
have  written  of  the  magnificent  openings  that  are 
presented  to  the  consecrated  youth  in  our  colleges  and 
churches.  It  is  a  icnique  opportunity  for  the  largest 
investment  of  men  and  m^ans  the  churches  have  ever 
placed  at  tlu  service  of  Christ. 

To  the  prayerful  consideration  of  the  reader,  who, 
through  this  personal  and  individual  appeal,  there 
should  come  the  "  still,  small  voice "  calling  him  to 
the  holy  and  honoured  service  of  the  mission  field,  let 
me,  in  aU  love  and  sincerity,  offer  my  own  personal 
testimony. 

The  missionary  life  is  a  walk  with  God,  a  service  with 
Jesus  Christ,  and  a  communion  and  fellowship  with  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

It  is  a  blessed  life.  It  is  a  peerless  service.  It  is  a 
supreme  honour.  It  is  a  life  of  strenuous,  continuous, 
and  sacrificial  toil.  It  is  the  place  where  the  promised 
Presence  is  fulfilled  in  its  richest  benedictions.  It  is  the 
place  where  the  Christian  life  may  be  sounded  to  its 
deepest  depths  and  rise  to  its  rarest  heights. 

It  is  the  conviction  of  the  three  thousand  eight 
hundred    missionaries    in   China    that    the    Church    has 


152       THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE 

never  risen  to  anything  like  a  comprehension  of  what 
God  waits  to  do  when  the  Church  is  sacrificial,  united, 
and  prayerfully  in  line  for  the  consummation  of  His 
Eternal  purpose. 

Whatever  the  future  has  in  store  for  China — and  the 
keenest  sight  breaks  down  at  the  horizon — one  hardly 
dares  predict ;  but  one  thing  is  absolutely  certain,  and 
that  is  that  the  last  crack  of  doom  for  heathenism  has 
sounded  !  China  will  never  return  to  its  former  state 
of  isolation  and  conservatism ;  but  the  indications  warn 
us  that  she  may  attain  power  without  restraint,  and 
knowledge  without  wisdom. 

In  this  transition  stage  of  the  Empire's  life,  Chris- 
tianity is  the  young  and  strong  giant  that  proposes  to 
change  its  character,  give  it  new  shape  and  guide  it  into 
new  issues. 

Whether  or  no  the  young  and  progressive  China  will 
be  allured  to  a  mere  intellectual  renaissance,  or  whether 
the  rapidly  advancing  ascendancy  of  the  Christian  con- 
tent will,  through  its  volume  and  variety  of  forces,  woo 
and  win  the  heart  and  mind  of  its  newly  formative 
youth,  and  through  them  its  masses  of  millions,  to  a 
spiritual  as  well  as  intellectual  regeneration,  is  the 
supreme  question  of  the  hour. 

*'  The  rudiments  of  empire  here, 
Are  plastic  yet,  and  warm  ; 
The  chaos  of  a  mighty  world 
Is  rounding  into  form." 


PRINTED  IN  ENGLAND 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA  FROM  1807  TO  1907  153 


WORK  ACCOMPLISHED 


WORK  TO  BE  DONE 


^issionnrn  Wiavheva 

4,558  Foreign  Missiouarie^s  (including 
wives)  have,  during  the  century, 
left  home  and  country  for  work 
in  China.  Of  these  3,800  are 
still  li\'ing  and  working  in 
China,  while  223  (including 
children)  have  sutfered  martyr- 
dom. 

9,900  Chinese  Helpers  are  now  en- 
gaged in  the  same  work. 

(S>}jintst  Cljrtstians 

154,000  Communicants,  or  including 
baptized  children  178,000,  re- 
present the  Christian  com- 
munity on  December  31st, 
1905.  It  is  estimated  that 
there  are  about 

750,000  Adherents  to  the  Christian 
Church. 
50,000  Chinese  Christians  have,  during 
the  century,  by  martyrdom  or 
natural  death,  joined  the  Church 
above. 

(JTHiEs  anis  Stations  ©pcneir 

632  Central  stations  and  5,102  out- 
stations     have     been     opened. 
These  Centres  have 
166  Hospitals  and  241  Dispensaries 
and 
2,585  Christian  Schools. 

2,529,977  Scriptures    were  circulated    in 
China  last  year,  while 

33,855,239  have  been  circulated  during  the 
cent\xry.     Of  this  number,  only 
379,243  are  whole  Bibles,  and 
2,347,057  whole  New  Testaments. 


^tssionarn  'Bolorhsrs 

16,000  Foreign  Missionaries  are  needed, 
if  there  is  to  be  one  for  every 
25,000  of  the  population. 

160,000  Chinese  Helpers  are  needed,  if 
there  is  to  be  one  for  every  2,500 
Chinese.    There  are 

44,000  Ordained  ministers  in  Great 
Britain  alone,  or  about  one  to 
evei-y  1,000  persons. 

®IjinEfi£  llon-ffiijrtBtians 

There  are  still  about 

2,600  Non-Christian  Chinese  to  every 
Chinese  Christian.    There  are 

80  millions  of  men  alone  in  China, 
which  is  more  than  the  whole 
population  of  men,  women,  and 
children  in  the  United  States  of 
America.  The  majority  of  these 
have  but  a  vague  idea  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

ffiiiifiB,  tic,  anoccuptcit 

1,557  of  the  2,033  walled  cities  of  China 
have  as  yet  no  resilient  missionary. 
Tens  of  thousands  of  towns  and 
villages  have  no  centre  of  Gospel 
Light.  No  province  is  yet  ade- 
quately worked. 

®Ij8  ^tripiurcB 

160  Years  would  be  needed,  at  last 
year's  rate,  to  give  every  person 
in  China  even  one  copy  of  a 
Scripture  portion.  Even  after  a 
centixry's  work,  of  every 

1,000  people  999  have  no  Bible,  even 
if  every  copy  ever  printed  were 
still  in  use. 


"We  must  not  forget  that  by  failing  to  advance  now,  when  there  are  so  many 
favouring  circumstances,  we  are  deferring  the  world's  evangelization  beyond  our  own 
day,  are  seriously  mortgaging  the  future,  and  are  hindering  the  achievements  of  our 
successors.  The  secret  of  victory,  Napoleon  said,  is  to  bring  up  the  reserves  when  the 
struggle  is  at  its  crisis." — John  R.  Mott. 


H.U.S. 


U 


BIBLIOGEAPHY 


Works  consulted  in  the  preparation  of  this  volume  : — 


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Holcombe. 

Gksta  Christi     .... 

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Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire 

Gibbon. 

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A  Voice  from  China,    . 

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